Nov 20

Today’s News 20th November 2020

  • Escobar: RCEP Hops On The New Silk Roads
    Escobar: RCEP Hops On The New Silk Roads

    Tyler Durden

    Thu, 11/19/2020 – 23:40

    Authored by Pepe Escobar via The Asia Times,

    Ho Chi Minh, in his eternal abode, will be savoring it with a heavenly smirk. Vietnam was the – virtual – host as the 10 Asean nations, plus China, Japan, South Korea, Australia and New Zealand, signed the Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership, or RCEP, on the final day of the 37th Asean Summit.

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    RCEP, eight years in the making, binds together 30% of the global economy and 2.2 billion people. It’s the first auspicious landmark of the Raging Twenties, which started with an assassination (of Iran’s Gen. Soleimani) followed by a global pandemic and now ominous intimations of a dodgy Great Reset.

    RCEP seals East Asia as the undisputed prime hub of geoeconomics. The Asian Century in fact was already in the making way back in the 1990s. Among those Asians as well as Western expats who identified it, in 1997 I published my book 21st: The Asian Century (excerpts here.)

    RCEP may force the West to do some homework, and understand that the main story here is not that RCEP “excludes the US” or that it’s “designed by China”. RCEP is an East Asia-wide agreement, initiated by Asean, and debated among equals since 2012, including Japan, which for all practical purposes positions itself as part of the industrialized Global North. It’s the first-ever trade deal that unites Asian powerhouses China, Japan and South Korea.

    By now it’s clear, at last in vast swathes of East Asia, that RCEP’s 20 chapters will reduce tariffs across the board; simplify customs, with at least 65% of service sectors fully open, with increased foreign shareholding limits; solidify supply chains by privileging common rules of origin; and codify new e-commerce regulations.

    When it comes to the nitty gritty, companies will be saving and be able to export anywhere within the 15-nation spectrum without bothering with extra, separate requirements from each nation. That’s what an integrated market is all about.

    When RCEP meets BRI

    The same scratched CD will be playing non-stop on how RCEP facilitates China’s “geopolitical ambitions”. That’s not the point. The point is RCEP evolved as a natural companion to China’s role as the main trade partner of virtually every East Asian player.

    Which brings us to the key geopolitical and geoeconomic angle: RCEP is a natural companion to the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI), which as a trade/sustainable development strategy spans not only East Asia but delves deeper into Central and West Asia.

    The Global Times analysis is correct: the West has not ceased to distort BRI, without acknowledging how “the initiative they have been slandering is actually so popular in the vast majority of countries along the BRI route.”

    RCEP will refocus BRI – whose “implementation” stage, according to the official timetable, starts only in 2021. The low-cost financing and special foreign exchange loans offered by the China Development Bank will become much more selective.

    There will be a lot of emphasis on the Health Silk Road – especially across Southeast Asia. Strategic projects will be the priority: they revolve around the development of a network of economic corridors, logistic zones, financial centers, 5G networks, key sea ports and, especially short and mid-term, public health-related high-tech.

    The discussions that led to the final RCEP draft were focused on a mechanism of integration that can easily bypass the WTO in case Washington persists on sabotaging it, as was the case during the Trump administration.

    The next step could be the constitution of an economic bloc even stronger than the EU – not a far-fetched possibility when we have China, Japan, South Korea and the Asean 10 working together. Geopolitically, the top incentive, beyond an array of imperative financial compromises, would be to solidify something like Make Trade, Not War.

    RCEP marks the irredeemable failure of the Obama era TPP, which was the “NATO on trade” arm of the “pivot to Asia” dreamed up at the State Department. Trump squashed TPP in 2017. TPP was not about a “counterbalance” to China’s trade primacy in Asia: it was about a free for all encompassing the 600 multinational companies which were involved in its draft. Japan and Malaysia, especially, saw thought it from the start.

    RCEP also inevitably marks the irredeemable failure of the decoupling fallacy, as well as all attempts to drive a wedge between China and its East Asian trade partners. All these Asian players will now privilege trade among themselves. Trade with non-Asian nations will be an afterthought. And every Asean economy will give full priority to China.

    Still, American multinationals won’t be isolated, as they will be able to profit from RCEP via their subsidiaries within the 15-nation members.

    What about Greater Eurasia?

    And then there’s the proverbial Indian mess. The official spin from New Delhi is that RCEP would “affect the livelihoods” of vulnerable Indians. That’s code for an extra invasion of cheap and efficient Chinese products.

    India was part of the RCEP negotiations from the start. Pulling out – with a “we may join later” conditional – is once again a spectacular case of stabbing themselves in the back. The fact is the Hindutva fanatics behind Modi-ism bet on the wrong horse: the US-fostered Quad partnership cum Indo-Pacific strategy, which spells out as containment of China and thus preclude closer trade ties.

    No “Make in India” will compensate for the geoeconomic, and diplomatic, blunder – which crucially implies India distancing itself from the Asean 10. RCEP solidifies China, not India, as the undisputed engine of East Asian growth amid the re-positioning of supply chains post-Covid.

    A very interesting geoeconomic follow-up is what will Russia do. For the moment, Moscow’s priority involves a Sisyphean struggle: manage the turbulent relationship with Germany, Russia’s largest import partner.

    But then there’s the Russia-China strategic partnership –which should be enhanced economically. Moscow’s concept of Greater Eurasia involves deeper involvement both East and West, including the expansion of the Eurasia Economic Union (EAEU), which, for instance, has free trade deals with Asean nations such as Vietnam.

    The Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) is not a geoeconomics mechanism. But it’s intriguing to see what President Xi Jinping said at his keynote speech at the Council of Heads of State of the SCO last week.

    This is Xi’s key quote:

    “We must firmly support relevant countries in smoothly advancing major domestic political agendas in accordance with law; maintaining political security & social stability, and resolutely oppose external forces interfering in internal affairs of member states under any pretext.”

    Apparently this has nothing to do with RCEP. But there are quite a few intersections. No interference of “external forces”. Beijing taking into consideration the Covid-19 vaccine needs of SCO members – and this could be extended to RCEP. The SCO – as well as RCEP – as a multilateral platform for member states to mediate disputes.

    All of the above points to the inter-sectionality of BRI, EAEU, SCO, RCEP, BRICS+ and AIIB, which translates as closer Asia – and Eurasia – integration, geoeconomically and geopolitically. While the dogs of dystopia bark, the Asian – and Eurasian – caravan – keeps marching on.

  • Argentina Approves "Confiscatory" Wealth Tax On Millionaires
    Argentina Approves "Confiscatory" Wealth Tax On Millionaires

    Tyler Durden

    Thu, 11/19/2020 – 23:20

    In an early glimpse of what wealth redistribution will look among developed nations in coming years, on Wednesday the lower house of Argentina’s Congress approved a bill seeking to raise 300 billion pesos ($3.75 billion) through a tax on the ultra rich to finance programs aimed at helping families hit by the COVID-19 pandemic.

    In a vote that passed 133 to 115 with two abstentions, people with more than $2.5 million in net worth – over 10,000 individuals – will make an “Extraordinary Solidarity Payment,” paying a one-off 2% flat tax. The tax would increase progressively as equity increases, under the proposal.

    “The level of concentration of wealth, in a few hands, is so strong that this contribution falls on less than 0.02 percent of the population,” said government deputy Fernanda Vallejos during debate. “About half of what is collected will be contributed by only 252 people, those who are at the top of the pyramid.”

    Government supporters took to the streets on Tuesday to show their support for the bill, with militant Peronist groups leading caravans of vehicles and marches on foot to Congress.

    The so-called “wealth tax” or “millionaire’s tax” bill – which the opposition slammed as “confiscatory” – may face a tougher time in the Senate, which will likely consider it before the end of the month, with the Frente de Todos coalition needing allies to support it.

    The one-time (for now) tax will apply to individuals whose declared assets exceed 200 million pesos (US$2.35 million), with a progressive rate of up to 3.5% for assets in Argentina and up to 5.25% on goods outside the country. According to AFP, between 9,000 and 12,000 people fall into that bracket in Argentina, a country with 40.9% of its 44 million inhabitants currently living in poverty. Unemployment stands at just over 10%, with the economy still yet to overcome a recession that began in 2018. Things have only worsened after the coronavirus pandemic, and the IMF estimates GDP will contract by 11% this year.

    The bill lays out that the “extraordinary contribution” will be a one-time measure and it indicates where the funds will be sent and what they will be used for. For example, it names development and production programmes for small and medium-sized businesses (SMEs), education projects and student scholarships, as well as the purchase of medical equipment.

    It establishes that 20 percent of what is raised from the levy will be used for medical supplies to attend the Covid-19 health emergency, with another 20 percent designated for SMEs, 15 percent for social development programmes, 20 percent for student scholarships and 25 percent for development programmes related to natural gas.

    President Alberto Fernández, who took office in December amid a recession that has been exacerbated by the pandemic, has sharply increased public spending to protect hard-hit families over recent months. More than 36,106 Argentines have died of COVID-19 so far, according to official data.

    The government hopes that the levy on large fortunes will help strengthen its fiscal outlook. Over the past eight months, the Fernández administration has allocated millions of dollars in aid to the private sector to alleviate the economic impact of the lockdown imposed to tackle the advance of the coronavirus, while raising social support payments for workers in the informal economy.

    The law provides for higher rates for assets located abroad, but offers relief for those who decide to repatriate them in whole or in part.

    Meanwhile, the opposition Juntos por el Cambio says it rejects the initiative, describing the idea as “confiscatory.” As debate got underway on Tuesday, deputies from the opposition coalition called on their peers to vote it down.

    “Argentina already has many taxes and very high tax evasion. Instead of creating new taxes, what must be done is the efficient collection for those that exist,” said opposition lawmaker Álvaro González.

    “The opposition is looking for arguments that go against the objective of this bill,” countered Peronist deputy José Luis Ramón. “They say that it is a tax but it is an extraordinary contribution and only this one time, due to the pandemic.”

    The business sector is also divided against the law. Generally, chamber groups and large firms reject the initiative, while small- and medium-sized businesses are more likely to back it.

    “The bill will end up decapitalising companies that invest, produce and sustain employment in a health emergency context,” complained the powerful Argentine Industrial Union. The contribution is for individuals with large fortunes and will not be imposed on companies.

    Argentina is hardly the first country to impose mandatory wealth taxes, with at least three European countries already levying a net wealth tax: Norway, Spain, and Switzerland. Belgium, Italy, and the Netherlands levy wealth taxes on selected assets, but not on an individual’s net wealth per se according to the Tax Foundation.

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    • Norway levies a net wealth tax of 0.85 percent on wealth stocks exceeding NOK1.5 million (€150,000 or US $164,000), with 0.7 percent going to municipalities and 0.15 percent to the central government. Norway’s net wealth tax constitutes around 1.1 percent of its total tax revenues and dates to 1892.
    • Spain’s net wealth tax is a progressive tax ranging from 0.2 percent to 2.5 percent on wealth stocks above €700,000 ($775,000), with rates varying substantially across Spain’s autonomous regions (Madrid offers a 100 percent relief). Spanish residents are subject to the tax on a worldwide basis while non-residents pay the tax only on assets located in Spain. The net wealth tax makes up only 0.5 percent of total tax revenues.
    • Switzerland levies its net wealth tax at the cantonal level and covers worldwide assets (except real estate and permanent establishments located abroad). The tax rates and allowances vary significantly across cantons. First implemented in 1840, the tax now constitutes around 3.6 percent of total tax revenue.

    Yet the success of wealth taxes is mixed at best, and as the next chart below shows, government revenue raised from wealth taxes is a tiny fraction of other tax revenues.

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  • Israel Resumes Bombing Targets In Syria
    Israel Resumes Bombing Targets In Syria

    Tyler Durden

    Thu, 11/19/2020 – 23:00

    Submitted by SouthFront,

    The Israeli Air Force is once again bombing targets in Syria amid growing turbulence in the Greater Middle East.

    Early on November 18, the Israeli Air Force conducted a series of strikes on targets in Syria. The Israeli Defense Forces (IDF) claimed that the strikes hit “warehouses, command posts and military complexes, and batteries of surface-to-air missiles” belonging to the Syrian Army and the Iranian Quds Force. In total, the strikes reportedly hit 8 targets including the following:

    • an alleged Iranian military complex near Damascus International Airport;

    • some mysterious secret military barracks which act as a housing complex for senior Iranian officials as well as visiting delegations;

    • a command post for Division 7 of the Syrian Army which allegedly cooperates with the Quds Force;

    • surface-to-air missile launchers which had fired in the direction of the Israeli jets during the strikes.

    The Israeli side claimed that the strikes came in response to the placement of explosive charges near the contact line between the Israeli-controlled part of the Golan Heights and Syrian-controlled territory. According to IDF Spokesman Brig.-Gen. Hidai Zilberman, the anti-personnel mines discovered on November 17th were actually planted several weeks before “by local Syrians under the command of Iranian Quds Force.”

    “We have long been prepared for the possibility of terror attacks in the northern sector,” Defense Minister Benny Gantz said commenting on the attack. “The IDF has the capabilities and the determination to respond severely to any incident both on the Lebanese and Syrian fronts… I say clearly: Syria is responsible for what occurs on its territory.”

    In their turn, the Syrian state media reported that the Syrian military had activated its air defense forces in response to the Israeli aggression claiming that a number of missiles were intercepted.  According to the Syian Ministry of Defense, three service members were killed and another one was injured as a result of the strikes. Sources loyal to Israel and militant groups operating in Syria claim that at least 10 Iranian-backed fighters were killed.

    Israel justifies its recent attack on Syria with the need to respond to Iranian-backed ‘terror plots’. A more realistic version would be that Tel Aviv, concerned by the reported loss of Donald Trump in the US presidential election, has been trying to exploit the potential last months of the Trump administration’s unconditional support to deliver as much damage as possible to its regional opponents.

    Meanwhile, according to reports in US mainstream media, Mr. Donald Trump, well known for his hardcore pro-Israeli stance, is now even considering a plan of strikes on Iranian nuclear objects before he possibly leaves office.

    Trump reportedly requested his top aides to provide him with “options” for attacking Iran’s main nuclear site, Natanz, as Iran continues to increase its stockpile of low-enriched uranium as a part of its gradual withdrawal from the 2015 nuclear deal, which the Trump administration had itself destroyed by unilaterally withdrawing from it. The main options, according to reports, are, as always, an old-school cruise missile strike or a massive cyber-attack. The Iranian leadership has already promised a ‘crushing response’ to any kind of aggression. And there can be little doubt that Iran, which already has the experience of shooting down US military drones over the Persian Gulf and launching ballistic missiles at US bases in Iraq, would turn its promises into reality.

    Especially if Mr. Trump is not able to challenge the outcome of the presidential election successfully in court and is forced to accept his loss, it does not look like the last months of the Trump administration are going to be marked by any kind of calm on the international scene.

  • Port Of Baltimore Officers Intercept 157 Stolen Cars In 2020 Bound For Africa 
    Port Of Baltimore Officers Intercept 157 Stolen Cars In 2020 Bound For Africa 

    Tyler Durden

    Thu, 11/19/2020 – 22:40

    Many of the container ships departing from the Port of Baltimore sail to West African countries. Organized crime gangs have found this out long ago, using the port as a convenient place to load their stolen vehicles, bound for places like Liberia and Nigeria. 

    In recent years, the U.S. Customs and Border Protection officers at the Baltimore Field Office have cracked down on the stolen vehicle trade. For this past fiscal year (Oct. 1, 2019, through Sept. 30, 2020), the Baltimore Field Office, covering the Port of Baltimore and the Port of Wilmington in Delaware, intercepted 157 stolen cars before they were shipped overseas.

    Fox45 News says the Baltimore Field Office “ranks second in the number of vehicles intercepted during that time … Only the New York field office recovered more.”

    The 157 vehicles represent a total value of $4.8 million. Fox45 News provides more details about where the stolen cars came from and where they were headed. 

    37 of the vehicles were stolen from Maryland. 16 others were stolen from Virginia. Nationally, the Office of Field Operations recovered 1,082 stolen vehicles, of which 833 were destined overseas.

    Most of the vehicles were being shipped to countries in Africa, including Benin, The Gambia, Ghana, Guinea, Ivory Coast, Liberia, Nigeria, Senegal, Sierra Leone, and Togo.

    The most expensive recovered stolen vehicle was a 2019 Land Rover Range Rover, valued at $114,175; it was destined for Guinea.

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    The oldest vehicles were a 1999 Nissan Frontier destined to Guatemala and a 1999 Lexis RX300 destined to Nigeria. -Fox45 News

    Last year, the Baltimore Field Office reported a “new record” in the number of stolen vehicles being shipped from surrounding ports. 

    As American cities become more violent, amid the socio-economic implosion, expect the stolen vehicle trade from US East Coast to Africa to continue to surge. 

     

  • Leftists Suggest "Re-Education Camps", "Firing Squads", & Banning Talk Radio To "Deprogram" 75 Million Trump Supporters
    Leftists Suggest "Re-Education Camps", "Firing Squads", & Banning Talk Radio To "Deprogram" 75 Million Trump Supporters

    Tyler Durden

    Thu, 11/19/2020 – 22:20

    Authored by Paul Joseph Watson via Summit News,

    Leftists responded to a Twitter thread asking “how do you deprogram 75 million people?” by suggesting Trump supporters should be interned in “re-education camps” and that all conservative talk radio should be banned.

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    “No seriously…how *do* you deprogram 75 million people? Where do you start? Fox? Facebook?” asked David Atkins (pronouns in bio), a regional director for California Democrats. “We have to start thinking in terms of post-WWII Germany or Japan. Or the failures of Reconstruction in the South,” he added.

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    Atkins went on to frame Trump voters as a “conspiracy theory fueled belligerent death cult against reality & basic decency” before issuing a veiled threat by stating, “People are gonna try to figure out how to defend themselves.”

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    While asserting the moral high ground, many of the response in the thread demanded outright tyranny or yet more censorship as a means of ensuring “the good guys” have their way.

    One verified user called for “Nuremberg trials.”

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    “I would look at Germany and see what they did about Nazis. Because you’re dealing with the same mentality,” said another.

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    “Reeducation camps for those salvageable,” said another. Firing squad for irredeemable malcontents. Round up entire families to ensure the disease doesn’t spread.”

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    “Generally speaking, I believe re-education camps are a good thing,” added another.

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    Another called for the removal of “radio talk show hosts from airwaves through rigorous application of hate speech laws.”

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    “Cut them off completely. End the flow of false information suddenly and immediately,” said another, calling for all right-wing news outlets to “die.”

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    Another respondent called for “banning Trump flags.”

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    Hans, are we the baddies?

    *  *  *

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  • Sidney Powell Says Trump Team Will Sue Officials "To Invalidate" Election Results… And An Inside Look Into Smartmatic
    Sidney Powell Says Trump Team Will Sue Officials "To Invalidate" Election Results… And An Inside Look Into Smartmatic

    Tyler Durden

    Thu, 11/19/2020 – 22:01

    Shortly before the Associated Press announced late on Thursday that Joe Biden had won the state of Georgia after its secretary of state said that Biden had remained ahead after a hand recount of the state’s 5 million presidential votes making him the first Democratic presidential candidate in 28 years to win the state pending any potential litigation by Trump, the president’s attorney Sidney Powell warned that a “flurry of lawsuits” await election officials who certify the results of the election which she believes are fraudulent.

    The former federal prosecutor, who is also Michael Flynn’s lead attorney in a case about lying to the FBI, told Fox Business host Lou Dobbs on Thursday that the Trump camp will press forward with legal action, targeting election officials as they certify the 2020 results in several key battleground states that have been called for President-elect Joe Biden. One of them would be Georgia’s Republican Secretary of State, Brad Raffensperger, who must certify the results by Friday.

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    Dobbs also asked if Trump’s llegal team will pursue legal action against Dominion Voting Systems and Smartmatic: “Are you pressing forward with legal action against them for those violations?” Dobbs asked.

    “Not against the company and the software,” Powell responded. “But the suits will be against the election officials to invalidate the results of the election and force it to the legislatures and the Electoral College and then the Congress if necessary.”

    As we reported earlier, Powell asserted that Dominion and Smartmatic are “inexplicably intertwined.” She appeared with former New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani and other members of Trump’s election legal team at a press conference in Washington, D.C., to accuse Democrats of an elaborate plot by his opponents to “rig” voting machines in the presidential.

    During that conference, Giulianni said that he “can prove that [Trump] won Pennsylvania by 150,000 votes” and that “the people who did this have committed one of the worst crimes that I’ve ever seen or heard.” The former NYC mayor also said there is a pattern in the voting data that suggests “a plan from a centralized place” to commit voter fraud in Democrat-run cities.

    At the same time, Powell said President Trump “won by a landslide,” and that their legal team will prove it.

    “American patriots are fed up with the corruption from the local level to the highest level of our government,” she said. “We are not going to be intimidated. We are not going to back down. We are going to clean this mess up now. President Trump won by a landslide. We are going to prove it. And we are going to reclaim the United States of America for the people who vote for freedom.”

    Powell alleged a transnational conspiracy involving the “influence of communist money” from countries including Cuba, Venezuela, and “likely China” to overturn the presidential race via election software.

    Powell also said that the legal team has testimony from an insider who unearthed provable fraud regarding voting machines and software used in multiple states. The person said they worked with the Venezuelan military, outlining a conspiracy between Smartmatic executives, former socialist Venezuelan dictator Hugo Chavez, and election officials in the country years ago.

    The whistleblower said the “software and fundamental design of the electronic electoral system and software of Dominion and other election tabulating companies relies upon software that is a descendant of the Smartmatic Electoral Management System.”

    “In short, the Smartmatic software is in the DNA of every vote-tabulating company’s software and system,” the whistleblower said.

    Powell alleged that Smartmatic, Dominion, and others used technology on Election Day that was developed under Chavez’s regime years ago to “make sure he never lost an election.”

    On Monday, Powell posted some of her evidence on Twitter, which consisted of three screenshots of an affidavit that she said was signed by a former military official from Venezuela about elections there. According to her and excerpts from the affidavit, elections software company Smartmatic helped the Venezuelan government rig its elections by switching votes and leaving no trail. The military official said in the excerpts that the U.S. election was “eerily reminiscent” of what happened in Venezuela’s 2013 presidential election.

    “This person saw, by his own experience, exactly what was happening there was happening here,” Ms. Powell explained to Fox News on Monday.

    The accusations triggered the New York Times, which dragged by its anti-Trump bias was forced to suggest that Venezuela’s 2017 election was actually quite fair and open…

    Previous claims that Smartmatic’s voting machines were rigged in Venezuela have been disputed and are “unsubstantiated,” according to The Associated Press.

    … even though it was none other than the New York Times reporting in 2017 that “Venezuela Reported False Election Turnout” citing Smartmatic, whose machines were used in that particular Venezuela election and several previous ones.

    Smartmatic has denied any ties to Dominion, while Dominion said that it has “no company ownership relationships with the Pelosi family, Feinstein family, Clinton Global Initiative, Smartmatic, Scytl, or any ties to Venezuela.”  Dominion bought assets from a subsidiary of Smartmatic three years after it was sold. Smartmatic wrote on its website that it “does not have any ties to any governments or political parties in any country. It has never been owned, funded or backed by any government.”

    Which is odd, considering that Wikileaks has leaked several formerly confidential cables disclosing the murky background of Smartmatic. In fact, we urge everyone to read the July 10, 2006 classified cable titled “Caracas’ View of Smartmatic and its voting machines“ written by Robert Downes, the U.S. Embassy’s political counselor in Caracas at the time. Here is an excerpt:

    The Venezuelan-owned Smartmatic Corporation is a riddle both in ownership and operation, complicated by the fact that its machines have overseen several landslide (and contested) victories by President Hugo Chavez and his supporters.  The electronic voting company went from a small technology startup to a market player in just a few years, catapulted by its participation in the August 2004 recall referendum.  Smartmatic has claimed to be of U.S. origin, but its true owners — probably elite Venezuelans of several political strains — remain hidden behind a web of holding companies in the Netherlands and Barbados.  The Smartmatic machines used in Venezuela are widely suspected of, though never proven conclusively to be, susceptible to fraud.  The company is thought to be backing out of Venezuelan electoral events, focusing now on other parts of world, including the United States via its subsidiary, Sequoia.  End Summary.

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    Who Owns Smartmatic?
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    2. (C) Smartmatic was founded in the late 90s by three Venezuelans, Antonio Mugica, Alberto Anzola, and Roger Pinate.  According to Mugica’s conversations with poloffs in recent years, the three had developed a network capable of handling thousands of simultaneous inputs.  An early application was ATMs in Mexico, but the U.S. presidential election in 2000 led the group to consider electronic voting platforms.  The company formed the SBC consortium with Venezuelan telecom provider CANTV (at the time 28-percent owned by Verizon) and a software company called Bizta. Mugica said Smartmatic held 51-percent of the  consortium, CANTV had 47 percent, and Bizta, 2 percent (ref a).  The latter, also owned by the Smartmatic owners, was  denounced in June 2004 by the press for having received a US$200,000 equity investment from a Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela (BRV) joint venture fund called FONCREI; a Chavez campaign adviser was placed on the board as well.  Bizta reimbursed what it called the “loan” when it was made public and shed the Chavista board member.

    3. (C) Mugica has told Poloffs on several occasions that Anzola, Pinate, and he are the owners of Smartmatic, though they have a list of about 30 investors who remain anonymous. Jose Antonio Herrera, Anzola’s father-in-law (and first cousin to Venezuelan Ambassador to the United States Bernardo Alvarez), told poloff in 2004 the silent partners were mainly upper class Venezuelans, some of whom were staunch Chavez opponents.  There were rumors, however, that Smartmatic’s early profits came from  Venezuelan defense contracts supplied by then-Defense Minister Jose Vicente Rangel, whom Chavez later promoted to Vice President.  Perhaps coincidentally, the Vice President’s daughter, Gisela Rangel Avalos, was the head of the local corporate registry when Smartmatic was registered, which contributed to allegations of the Vice President’s involvement.  These unconfirmed rumors also suggested that one-time Chavez political mentor Luis Miquilena was also a shareholder in the company.

    4. (C) Mugica first approached the Embassy in 2004 when the company was bidding at the National Electoral Council (CNE) to provide a completely new electronic voting system.  Mugica pitched Smartmatic as a U.S. company registered in Delaware with offices in Boca Raton, Florida.  In fact, poloffs had several discussions with Mugica in the course of facilitating his L-1 inter-company transfer visa to work in the United States.  Mugica said the company’s corporate offices were in Boca Raton, but most of the research staff of some 70 employees remained in Caracas.  Smartmatic essentially purchased its electoral expertise by hiring veteran election observer AMCIT Jorge Tirado and his team of consultants. Tirado served as the interface between Smartmatic and the CNE for several elections.

    It only gets better…

    In May 2006, Mugica told Poloff Smartmatic’s corporate structure had changed (which had come out in press reports during 2005).  Mugica said that Smartmatic was now two different companies under a Dutch holding company.  U.S. setup was essentially the same, with Delaware registry and the Boca Raton accounting office overseeing U.S. operations. Smartmatic acquired the U.S voting machine company Sequoia Voting Systems on March 8, 2005, Mugica reported.  All U.S. election machinery is assembled in New York, he said.  Mugica noted that while their U.S. operations were important, more than half their sales were outside of Venezuela and the United States.  The other Smartmatic company was based in Bridgetown, Barbados, where Mugica said the international sales operation was located.  Most of the manufacturing for their electoral and other electronic machinery was done in China, Mugica said, with some component work also done in Taiwan.  Smartmatic also manufactures some items in Italy through the company Olivetti (which built the original Smartmatic machines for Venezuela).  The research and development shop was still located in Caracas, Mugica noted.

    And better…

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    A Shadow of Fraud
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    6. (C) Of course, the Venezuelan opposition is convinced that the Smartmatic machines robbed them of victory in the August 2004 referendum.  Since then, there have been at least eight statistical analyses performed on the referendum results. Most of the studies cross-check the results with those of exit polls, the signature drives and previous election results.  One study obtained the data log from the CANTV network and supposedly proved that the Smartmatic machines were bi-directional and in fact showed irregularities in how they reported their results to the CNE central server during the referendum.  (Note:  The most suspicious data point in the Smartmatic system was that the machines contacted the server before printing their results, providing the opportunity, at least, to change the results and defeat the rudimentary checks set up by international observation missions.  Since August 2004, the CNE has not repeated this practice.)  These somewhat conspiratorial reports perhaps serve to breathe life into a defeated opposition, but have never proved conclusively the fraud (refs b and c).

    And better…

    The Smartmatic machines suffered a major blow, however, when in a test prior to the December 2005 National Assembly elections an opposition technician was able to defeat the machine’s allegedly random storage protocols and, therefore, the secrecy of the vote.  The technician took advantage of the fact that the computerized machines used a Windows operating system.  A simple program downloaded from the Internet accessed underlying Windows files created “in order” as the machine processed Smartmatic’s “randomizing” software.  Although Smartmatic officials argued convincingly that such controlled results could not be feasibly replicated during a real election (ref d), the opposition parties boycotted.  Abstention rates soared to at least 75 percent and confidence in the CNE among opposition voters plummeted. The disastrous results left Chavez with 100-percent control of the National Assembly, an albatross around the neck of a leader trying to appear democratic.

    And even better…

    ——————-
    At Least Corruption
    ——————-
     
    8. (C) If Smartmatic can escape the fraud allegation, there is still a corruption question.  Well before Smartmatic, Venezuelan law had dictated that voting ought to be automated to limit fraud — the U.S. company ES&S and Spanish firm Indra had already sold systems to the electoral body.  When the new pro-Chavez CNE was named in September 2003, however, it immediately set out to replace all existing systems. Declaring the bid process to be an emergency (though there was as yet no referendum scheduled), the CNE bypassed normal procedures and initiated a closed bid process.  Smartmatic won the contract, which totaled at least US$128 million, including the delivery of 20,000 touch-screen voting machines (re-engineered lottery machines) yet to be built.  There were immediate questions about how a virtually unknown company with no electoral experience could have landed such a large contract.  Mugica asserted to poloff that everything was above board, though he conceded the company may have opened itself up to criticism by hiring a former interior vice minister named Morris Loyo to lobby the government.  There were additional allegations of impropriety in October 2005 when the press reported that Smartmatic had paid the bill of CNE President Jorge Rodriguez at an exclusive Boca Raton resort.  The company claimed Rodriguez had reimbursed them for the stay, during which Rodriguez reportedly examined an unspecified electoral system Smartmatic was developing. There were subsequent, unconfirmed rumors that Rodriguez was lobbying for Smartmatic in other countries.

    Until we get to the startling conclusion:

    Smartmatic is a riddle.  The company came out of nowhere to snatch a multli-million dollar contract in an electoral process that ultimately reaffirmed Chavez’ mandate and all-but destroyed his political opposition.  The perspective we have here, after several discussions with Smartmatic, is that the company is de facto Venezuelan and operated by Venezuelans.  The identity of Smartmatic’s true owners remains a mystery.  Our best guess is that there are probably several well-known Venezuelan businessmen backing the company who prefer anonymity either because of their political affiliation or, perhaps, because they manage the interests of senior Venezuelan government officials.

    This is all from a confidential State Dept cable written in 2006.

    Since then one can only imagine what fascinating changes have taken place to the org chart of the mysterious “riddle” that is the “de facto Venezuelan” Smartmatic, which emerged out of obscurity to win a top government contract in 2003, prompting the US State Department to ask “how a virtually unknown company with no electoral experience could have landed such a large contract.” What is more fascinating is how for so many years, this mysterious company was directly involved in one allegation of election fraud in Venezuela after another (whereby communist dictators Chavez and Maduro won in consecutive “landslides”) before it somehow made its way into the US.

  • We Need To Protect The Free Speech Of Dissident Doctors
    We Need To Protect The Free Speech Of Dissident Doctors

    Tyler Durden

    Thu, 11/19/2020 – 21:40

    Authored by ‘The COVID Physician’ via TheCritic.co.uk,

    Liberty. The right to be free from torture, inhumane and ill treatment; the prohibition of servitude; the right to liberty and security of person; the right to a fair trial; freedom of expression; freedom of thought, conscience, and religion; the right to privacy and a family life; freedom of association; freedom from discrimination; and policing by consent are all so pre-Covid-19. The governmental response to the coronavirus pandemic has massacred these fundamental human rights.

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    Weaselly Covid marshals in hi-vis vests now bark aggressively at me, telling me to “stand back!” and “cover your nose!”. I have stopped resisting or trying to placate them with reason. I have stopped trying to reassure them that I am a doctor. Their brows furrow: a dissident doctor is either not really a doctor, or is the worst kind of scum.

    We live in a strange world where minority activists campaign for commercial euthanasia: a world in which a select number of elected and unelected individuals dictate that 100 per cent of us are not allowed the liberty of taking the 0.06 per cent risk of a cost-free, natural death from a respiratory illness (a very common terminal event) at an average age of 82 years old. This is utter insanity while younger, fitter people commit suicide at rising rates under repressive lockdown restrictions, economies collapse, and other debilitating diseases continue to crush, kill and incapacitate the other 99.94 per cent.

    Matt Hancock currently champions the right of a small minority of the terminally ill to travel abroad for a Dignitas death, while denying everyone else the right to face the small risk of death by Covid-19 in order to live with dignity and freedom in the UK. How does this make any sense?

    Two Elephants in the Room

    (1) How did we get here?

    (2) How prevent it happening again?

    These are the two questions that surviving mainstream investigative journalists and parliament seem unable to address. Our masters have consistently turned focus to a question that has preoccupied us for months: How do we get out? With this emphasis, they made haste to our perpetual imprisonment. How can we be certain that the question being asked in private is not, rather, how can we capitalise on this situation?

    How did we get here?

    First it is worth asking from where did the virus originate? Evidence from the scientific community supports the hypothesis it may have been genetically engineered in a laboratory. In May 2020 Professor Luc Montagnier, the virologist who won the Nobel prize for discovering the HIV virus, has corroborated Indian scientists’ concerns from January 2020 that there are four distinct regions of the SARS-CoV-2 genome which appear to have been spliced in from HIV genomes.

    Dr Limeng Yan goes further to say that Covid-19 was intentionally developed as a bioweapon. What further intrigues is Dr. Robert Gallo, an Anthony Fauci contemporary at the National Institute of Health (NIH) and another heavyweight from the 1980s race to isolate the HIV virus, appears to have briefly weighed in against Limeng’s previous September 2020 paper on a lab chimaera theory. So, who are we meant to believe in this tangled web?

    The technological knowledge of biological weapons and their antidotes is in the select hands of a few private individuals, corporations and military facilities

    Did you know that following serious scientific concern, there was a US government moratorium on the NIH conducting dangerous and unethical virus “gain of function” (GOF) research inside the US? However, the US continued to fundcoronavirus research at the Wuhan BSL-4 lab in that moratorium period of 2014 to 2017. GOF research increases the danger of – and weaponises – viruses. Were you aware that funding for this comes from Professor Anthony Fauci’s National Institute of Health and the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Disease? Are you aware that the US has funded and supported virological research with inter alia China for over 15 years? Indeed, Sino-American GOF research sponsored by Fauci’s NIH and NIAID, involving Wuhan BSL-4 lab’s “bat-woman”, Zhengli-Li Shi, was allowed to continue during this moratorium.

    How prevent it happening again?

    To answer the second question of prevention, one must to again ask how we got to this point of global paralysis where the WHO, a largely unaccountable, undemocratic, sprawling supranational entity under the private influence of the Gates Foundation and Pharma calls the shots, strips us of our human rights and God-given liberty. In this brave new world, the technological knowledge of biological weapons and their antidotes is in the select hands of a few private individuals, corporations and military facilities.

    How is it that civilian, state-owned scientific apparatuses to protect the population are either non-existent or wholly inadequate? So much so that our governments must jump into the lap of the profiteering pharma-cartels and their sponsored universities. Why do our chief scientific advisor, chief medical advisor, and chief mathematic remodeller seem to have cartel tattoos on their CVs? Would you trust Big Pharma hitmen to advise and cure you?

    Wouldn’t it be better to have independent, accountable state-funded experts who would be less prone to the politicisation and profit motives that are destroying our way of life? Is this not preferable to the collusive, corrupt, and clandestine public-private partnerships such as SAGE? Even the establishment BMJ’s Executive Editor has belatedly come round to express serious concern about the “politicisation, corruption, and suppression of science.” As Michael Gove said (and subsequently retracted), “I think the people are fed up of experts in organisations with acronyms, saying they know what is best and getting it consistently wrong.”

    As for pandemic preparedness, the government (presumably in conjunction with the same global non-state actors) is said to have organised for a public health crisis such as the one we currently find ourselves in, yet it seems to want to keep the findings of the Operation Cygnus report under lock and key. Why?

    What did Sir Simon Stevens, CEO of NHSE say at a press conference on 5 May 2020? This shifty, career pen-pusher said he was quoting from ICU consultant, Dr Alison Pittard. This, in practice, means he was absolving himself of all accountability and responsibility for the statement. He said he had spoken to her the day before and she had said, “In the here and now we cannot stop cancer developing, in the here and now we can’t immediately prevent heart attacks or strokes … but we can reduce the spread of coronavirus in the community.”

    This is a problematic and fatally misleading statement. Stevens should be ashamed of himself for making a political soundbite out of Dr Pittard’s words; particularly when citing her name for added authenticity and protection.

    First of all, if my colleague said this, please understand she operates in a very compartmentalised, specialist ICU cocoon, at the sharpest end of a chronically under-resourced and stymied NHS service. She will be traumatised, sensitised and conditioned by Simon Stevens’ under-funding of her service and the clear excess deaths of March and April.

    Second, know that we can prevent cancer developing, and stop heart attacks and strokes. This is called screening, early diagnosis, early intervention and timely surgery; such things were normal daily phenomena before March. Drug companies devoted billions to tell us it was possible. Now, Simon Stevens, Dr Alison Pittard and Pharma tell us it is not possible and squander 2.4 billion pounds daily to a National Covid Service which is six times the daily budget of the entire NHS.

    Third, how can an ICU consultant’s well-meaning soundbite be the final word in community medicine? Is lockdown actually an effective way to stop the spread of this disease? That’s debatable, and not absolute. I agree we could suppress it and keep kicking the can down the road, culminating in higher periodic and seasonal spikes. But how and when (if ever) do we exit from her strategy – a snake oil vaccine? Alternatively, we could have been like Sweden and got it over and done with. I doubt the lay fact-checkers will bother analysing Simon Stevens’ parroted wisdom.

    A few days later in The Sunday Times, Chris Hopson, the chief executive of NHS Providers, aped mindlessly:

    You can’t stop someone having a heart attack or a stroke, but you can control the volume of Covid-19 patients by using lockdowns to reduce the infection rate… the NHS will certainly be arguing that the Government should be very cautious about coming out of lockdown.

    Covid-19 and Chicken Pox

    Now, imagine if a novel Chicken Pox descended on earth as if from nowhere, for that is how SARS-CoV-2 appears to have arrived. This parallel may help facilitate a common perspective. It could well have been far more damaging and certainly more terrifying than SARS-CoV-2. Imagine: no prior immunity, no prior sharing a lollipop at a pox party with a friend’s child to ensure broad, safe, and natural immunity before adulthood. Young adults, adults and the elderly would be dying en masse of multi-system pathologies. The pox marks would strike psychological terror; there would be no cure, no vaccine. Gradually, we would learn to cope with it, embrace it as a child, a rite of passage that you would rather have.

    As for me, I had unknowingly acquired immunity at some point in my life. I discovered this because I required serological proof to work on a hospital paediatric ward in my thirties. So, I am relieved my child has possibly had Covid-19 as probably have I. To see hundreds of schools and their young teachers refuse the low risk of opening shop and returning to work seemed to me a dangerous folly: no immunity, no education, no jobs, no future, no life. We desperately need a reservoir of resilient, naturally immune people to shield the non-immune, vulnerable and elderly. More chance of suppressing the virus this way than with a rushed vaccine. I may as well say it now before it becomes criminal to do so. The world has lost its mind.

    Dissident doctors, Thought Crimes & Arbitrary Injustice

    Many have asked why more doctors and nurses are not coming forward with an alternative truth, and why they are not openly doing so. First, understand the state apparatus (including the regulatory body for doctors, the GMC) which has set its immovable stall: Catastrophic Pandemic (no such thing), Philanthropic Lockdown, Wonder Vaccine.

    Then, take the extraordinary GMC assault on senior consultant surgeon’s right to free speech. Dr. Mohammed Adil was metaphorically lynched; swinging ominously off the GMC entrance from his redundant stethoscope – a gangland warning from the drug cabal to the rest of us. Then, recall what happens to an NHS whistle-blower, in spite of so-called whistle blowing protection laws, by familiarising oneself with the unbelievable scapegoating, cover-up, injustice and judicial “incompetence” doled out to Dr. Chris Day over 6 years and counting.

    Now appreciate that in 2016, for the first time since at least 2006 according to cases compiled by the GMC, a doctor, consultant eye surgeon John Brookes walked scot free from his disciplinary tribunal without any sanction at all, even though the tribunal found he was guilty of misconduct. His offence? A 15-month sexual affair with a current patient. Not even a one-month nominal suspension was suitable: he was deemed too “unique” in his surgical talents and too valuable to his patients. The GMC tribunal made an “exceptional circumstance” of his case. The tribunal went further in its sympathies and commented that this was a consensual and mutually supportive sexual affair – that was until the jilted patient tweeted his affront to Brookes’ hospital CEO.

    The GMC doesn’t do human rights for all, nor morals, ethics and Hippocrates per se anymore. It does duties. Duties are done for employers. No more egregious example of this was the GMC case of Dr. John Brookes. His case is paradigmatic of the damage, demoralisation and destabilisation of the medical profession. Ten years ago, it is likely he would have been removed from the GMC register for such an offence.

    But, what of Dr. Adil, chairman of the World Doctors Alliance? He is a colleague of Dr Heiko Schöning, the German medic arrested at Speaker’s Corner in Hyde Park on 26 September 2020. What did Adil do to warrant his arrest? After several months of witnessing global and local healthcare go down the chute and members of the public suffer, he courageously (some would say extremely inexpediently) spoke out on YouTube with admirable passion about the global assault on civil liberties, public health, the NHS and his own patients’ health by disproportionate government measures. He referred to the pandemic as a hoax. You may find the video here.

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    Dr. Heiko Schöning being arrested for speaking at Speakers Corner, Hyde Park, 26 September 2020.

    The GMC didn’t like it. It suspended him from his patients and his 30-year-long NHS career for 12 months, pending tribunal. No unique attributes, no “magic fingers”, no “consensual and mutually supportive” sexual relationship with a patient to help him avoid interim suspension nor the charge of exercising his legal right to free speech.

    I am not saying I agree with him. “Hoax” may not be the most appropriate word to use in this situation. Dr Limeng Yan uses “fraud”. But how do we know for sure? Perhaps it is a hoax in the sense that in our collective hysteria we are leading ourselves to fatal self-deception? How does the GMC know? It does not. It has blind faith in the state-pharma-media sponsored narrative. Remember, lone voices have spoken out before when Tony Blair asserted to the world that Iraq had weapons of mass destruction. History proved those lone, renegade voices to be right. Look at what then became of the middle east, then Europe and now the world. We believed in our politicians and not the experts. Recall the strange, horrid fate that befell principled weapons inspector, Dr. David Kelly.

    The GMC seems not to care if Dr. Adil is correct. Might is right. He stepped out of line and spoke his truth. He must be silenced and professionally ruined before another doctor speaks. His was not speech riddled with hate, but by an honest concern that the government’s response to this pandemic is not medically or scientifically sound.

    The GMC’s primary concern is its statutory responsibility and overarching objective as set out in the Medical Act 1983 (as amended), in particular the need:

    1. To protect, promote and maintain the health, safety and wellbeing of the public;

    2. To maintain public confidence in the profession;

    3. To promote and maintain proper professional standards and conduct for members of the profession.

    As the BMJ reported:

    A GMC spokesperson said: ‘The interim orders tribunal imposed an interim suspension on Dr Adil’s registration, following our referral, to protect patients and public confidence. This interim suspension remains in place while we consider concerns about Dr Adil’s fitness to practise.’

    Well, who says it protects patients and maintains public confidence to see the GMC violate the lawful free speech of a senior doctor? Thousands of the people have turned out to support him. He is only one among a quarter of a million registered doctors. Why is there so much concern over his influence? Let him speak and be heard. Surely, he must have something important to say to risk his life’s calling? However, that is why the GMC is concerned, he speaks with repute and authority, and therefore the GMC must undermine him.

    By denying him his democratic right to political, personal and professional expression, the GMC colludes to deny his right to be heard, and the right of the public to hear him. It denies him the right to seek the truth in open, democratic discourse, and the right to scrutinise the government and hold it to account. It denies diversity and equality of opinion. It denies him his livelihood, and needlessly detaches him from his life’s work and patients who rely on him.

    Orwell once said, “If liberty means anything at all, it means the right to tell people what they do not want to hear”. Well, welcome to a very veterinary Animal Farm.

    Violation and criminalisation of human rights is becoming quite the corona-craze for official and charitable bodies. The British Academy, the Royal Society, the GMC, the government, the police… who next? Jonathan Sumption in retirement from judicial office is now able to speak with an impunity and candour not afforded to Dr Adil. Like Adil, he is a lone renegade. He pointedly called out the indifference of so-called civil rights organisations such as Liberty – which has a history of intervening for the partisan rights of Remainers – when it comes to defending everyone else’s human rights.

    We now have the Labour party wishing to criminalise and censor our free speech. This time their leverage is “anti-vaxxers”, but even that term is problematic. I would imagine it is a defamatory slur designed by the corporate mandatory vaccine pushers who wish to smokescreen the fact that most objectors are manifestly not anti-vax. They are simply and reasonably against useless, unsafe, rushed and unproven pharmaceuticals where the profit-centric corporations are given state immunity from civil and criminal prosecution should the pharmaceutical be dangerous.

    This is aside from the very serious issues of common assault, treatment without consent, and the violation of patient choice. In the context of what we know about the risks of the virus, none of this is appropriate, nor proportionate. What we now have is a mainstream principal of discretionary free speech at the behest of one ideological blob. If you do not worship at that altar, your god does not necessarily get to be heard, and may as well not exist.

    Dr. Adil is not the first nor only doctor to accuse the WHO, Pharma and governments of a hoax pandemic. Did you know we had a relatively dry practice run of the orchestration of the apparatus to inflict terror on the world and fill the coffers of Big Pharma in 2009-2010 with swine flu? A German doctor and politician, Dr. Wolfgang Wodarg, accused the WHO of conspiring with Pharma to redefine and lower the threshold of declaring a pandemic.

     That brings me to another doctor who might equally be accused of “over-valued ideas” and occupying the other end of the so-called pandemic hoax spectrum. She argues for the embattled corporate propagandists Whitty, Vallance, Ferguson and Johnson. She is Dame Clare Marx, Chair of the GMC. This is what she wrote a week before Lockdown 2.0: [emphases in bold are mine].

    A GMC Love Letter

     27.10.20

    Your wellbeing matters – a message from Dame Clare Marx

    Experiences of this pandemic will not be uniform, but for sure, none of us will be left unchanged.

    Doctors have found themselves working at the edge of their comfort zone. Some of you have confronted harrowing situations. Some have made difficult decisions against a backdrop of uncertainty and fear. Some have been unable to give the care you wanted to give. 

    Now, on top of managing rising demand, a weighty backlog of elective work and the second wave of the pandemic, doctors are bracing themselves for the much-anticipated winter storm.

    We know that you and your teams are already weary. With barely time to process the events of recent months, many of you are now steeling yourselves for the inevitable challenges to come.

    That commitment and resolve requires a huge physical and emotional effort, some would say it’s an act of courage.

    We went into medicine to help people and to make things better. But we can’t do that without caring for ourselves too. Your wellbeing matters – to you, your patients and to us as your regulator.

    We want to support you so you can keep delivering the best possible care to patients. We’ve compiled helpful resources here to help you survive and thrive over the coming months.

    We all know that this will be a marathon, not a sprint.

    The nature of being a doctor is to go above and beyond to deliver the care our patients require. But doing that requires doctors to take their own wellbeing seriously.

    On behalf of the GMC, and as a doctor myself, I am immensely proud of the profession’s response to this crisis.

    Thank you for your continued dedication and professionalism. Please look after yourselves, and each other.

    Dame Clare Marx

    Chair of the General Medical Council

    When I received this call to arms, I had to step back in some amazement. I found it unrepresentative, patronising and inappropriate in many parts. This letter was innuendo and euphemism, wrapped up in a tissue of concern for our well-being. The problem was ill-defined – is doctors’ mental health failing due to an apocalyptic pandemic or due to the government’s lockdown and suspension of the usual NHS? Or is it the huge backlog she at least acknowledges?

    Non-dissident Doctors

    However, some doctors do seem immune from GMC scrutiny. Have the two doctors (Drs. Martin Landry and Peter Horby) involved in the Oxford Recovery trial been properly held to account for unusually high doses of hydroxychloroquine given to presumably vulnerable hospitalised patients with advanced Covid-19? This may have killed cheap, generic hydroxychloroquine’s early promise as a community prophylactic and early treatment in Covid-19 at low and normal doses, leaving the market wide open for expensive, novel, commercially exploitable vaccines and therapies. In fact, it may well have: watch Chief Medical Officer, Chris Whitty reject hydroxychloroquine as a result of Recovery.

    It could be argued that Recovery might have hastened the demise of some of its participants. But, still, it is Dr. Adil who remains the GMC’s prime target and public enemy number one of our dysfunctional state.

    How did Recovery receive ethical approval to give excessive doses to vulnerable patients in an advanced Covid-19 state with hydroxychloroquine when mainstream media was telling us hydroxychloroquine was dangerous and toxic at normal doses? The Recovery trial gave a massive 2400mg hydroxychloroquine in the first 24 hrs, and 800mg every subsequent 24 hrs for the next 9 days. Who proposed and approved these doses? The normal daily dose is 200-400mg, and it is a general pharmaceutical principle that patients with organ failure are sometimes given lower doses to avoid toxicity.

    Recovery concluded hydroxychloroquine had no effect on survival, but what if it did and this was masked by its potential toxicity? Emerging data from other studies tells us that hydroxychloroquine may have an effective role to in early stage Covid-19 at low/normal doses.

    Something doesn’t add up. It seems as if the Recovery trial result has caused a character assassination on hydroxychloroquine. Are none of my colleagues concerned about this? Surely, there is a case to answer for these doctors.

    What would GMC scrutiny make of Drs. Pittard, Whitty, Landry, Horby and Marx? Are they merely GMC-compliant, dutiful doctors; are they ethical and competent professionals; have their actions protected patients and public confidence or caused harm and grossly negligent deaths? What about their “fitness to practise”? These are the complex and challenging questions for the GMC that only a few lone renegades are willing to ask.

    What can we do? I would urge the public to make their views known to their MPs and copy in the GMC and the Free Speech Union. Submit FOIA requests to the GMC, hold it to account – it acts for you. Support the Free Speech Union, and protect yourself and others by joining it and donating to it. We live in interesting times, and I fear they are about to become more interesting.

  • FBI Arrests Ponzi Suspect After Daring Escape On Underwater Scooter
    FBI Arrests Ponzi Suspect After Daring Escape On Underwater Scooter

    Tyler Durden

    Thu, 11/19/2020 – 21:20

    A fleeing Ponzi scheme suspect is now in custody after a daring escape on a submersible scooter from FBI agents, reported CBS Sacramento.

    Court documents, filed with the U.S. Attorney’s office said Matthew Piercey, 44, a suspect in a $35 million Ponzi scheme, used a Yamaha Seascooter to evade FBI agents under the surface of Lake Shasta in Shasta County, California, after a high-speed car chase through the Redding area on Monday. 

    “Piercey spent some time out of sight underwater where law enforcement could only see bubbles. He remained in the frigid water for approximately 25 minutes. When Piercey finally emerged from the lake, law enforcement discovered that he had a Yamaha 350LI underwater submersible device.

    “Law enforcement arrested Piercey at that point, approximately an hour after their initial contact in Redding,” Assistant U.S. Attorney Christopher Hales wrote in the filing. 

    Piercery’s temporary underwater escape was made possible by a Yamaha 350LI Seascooter, able to travel at 130 feet below the surface for 75 minutes with speeds over 3.7 mph. 

    Piercery’s Yamaha 350LI Seascooter

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    Piercey has been indicted for operating an alleged $35 million Ponzi scheme through his Family Wealth Legacy and Zolla investment companies. According to Hales, very little investing was being done by the Ponzi suspect: 

    “Piercey often paid off his lines of credit, credit cards, and personal and business expenses with investor funds, and his companies did not generate revenue sufficient to cover overhead and expenses while still paying investors the returns they were promised or otherwise led to expect. Piercey entered a pattern of paying old investors lulling payments with new investor funds, while making various false and misleading statements, half-truths, and omissions to raise new money and to hide the constant downward financial spiral,” he said. 

    Piercey has been under the radar of FBI agents for more than a year. Attorney Josh Kons told CBS Sacramento that his clients are victims in the scheme. 

    “You know, you never know what is going through someone’s mind when they’re being pursued by the FBI,” Kons said. “And we kept investigating, and all of a sudden today, here he is trying to escape into a lake, using a submersible device.”

    Court documents revealed, “few if any, liquid assets remain to repay investors.” Piercey faces up to 20 years behind bars for the alleged fraud.

    According to CNBC who quoted data from the website Ponzitracker earlier this year, Ponzi schemes in 2019 totaled the highest amount since around the Great Recession. These types of schemes tend to unwind at the end of economic cycles. 

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    Today’s virus-induced recession will likely result in even more Ponzi schemes unwinding. 

  • The New Ruling Coalition: Opposition To Afghanistan Withdrawal Shows Its Key Factions: Greenwald
    The New Ruling Coalition: Opposition To Afghanistan Withdrawal Shows Its Key Factions: Greenwald

    Tyler Durden

    Thu, 11/19/2020 – 21:00

    Authored by Glenn Greenwald via greenwald.substack.com,

    The Trump era has engendered numerous fractures, one might say realignments, in the political order. Long-time ideological allies are now adversaries, and long-time political enemies are now in full-fledged coalitions. These shifts are not temporary or Trump-dependent but enduring, because they are grounded in shared core beliefs about the defining debates shaping our new politics and how to consolidate real power: call it the Lincoln Project Syndrome.

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    One major reason for this transformation is a fundamental difference in how to understand Trump: is he the primary author of America’s pathologies or merely a symptom of pathologies which long pre-dated him? Relatedly: is removing Trump from power a vital step in returning the U.S. to its previous status as a benevolent and law-abiding republic, or is isolating him as the principal cause of the nation’s woes a cynical propaganda tactic for whitewashing the sins of those who are actually responsible so that they can rebuild their reputations and again assume power? Were Trump’s policies some radical, unprecedented aberration from U.S. political tradition or, stylistic quirks aside, a standard continuation of it?

    How one answers those questions — along with whether one believed that the Kremlin had infiltrated the White House and assumed command of the levers of U.S. power through elaborate blackmail schemes or whether one recognized that this was a CIA-fabricated propaganda fraud excavated from crusty Cold War scripts — determined where one fell on many of the most contentious political debates over the last four years (my answer to all of the questions is the latter choice).

    That’s why the millions of Americans who, due to fear of Trump, began paying close attention to politics and consuming news products only in 2016 were such easy marks for peddling fear-mongering narratives and revisionism: because they lacked the crucial historical context in which to place Trump and understand his ascension to the presidency.

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    Cover of TIME Magazine, May 18, 2017; Cover of The New Yorker, Feb. 24, 2017

    But there is another critical debate, one that has rarely been conducted explicitly, that is also a key determinant of where one falls in this new alignment: what are the real power centers in the U.S., the ones most responsible for its worst acts and greatest dangers?

    There are many places where that answer resides. One can find it right now in the ongoing effort to denounce the Trump White House for attempting to remove troops from Afghanistan, where the U.S. has been fighting and shooting and bombing in a war now about to enter its 20th year. Take a look at who is demanding that those troops remain, and there you will find the real axis of power — all of its component parts — in the United States.

    This is not the first time the Trump administration has been condemned after unveiling its plans to withdraw troops from Afghanistan. In July, pro-war Democrats on the House Armed Services Committee, led by their Lockheed-and-Raytheon-funded Chairman Adam Smith, partnered with Congresswoman Liz Cheney and her pro-war GOP allies to block the use of funds for removing troops (not only from Afghanistan but also Germany), as part of a massive increase in military spending. The oppositional left-right coalition of anti-war Democrats such as Ro Khanna and Tulsi Gabbard and America-First Trump supporters such as Matt Gaetz were no match for the bipartisan pro-war coalition which attempted to block any end to the war.

    A crucial weapon which Smith, Cheney and the other anti-withdrawal Committee members wielded was a widely-hyped New York Times scoop published days before the Committee vote, which — in its first paragraph — announced:

    American intelligence officials have concluded that a Russian military intelligence unit secretly offered bounties to Taliban-linked militants for killing coalition forces in Afghanistan — including targeting American troops — amid the peace talks to end the long-running war there, according to officials briefed on the matter.

    Repeatedly citing this New York Times story, based on the claims of anonymous “intelligence officials,” the bipartisan pro-war wing of the Committee insisted that to leave Afghanistan now would be particularly inappropriate and dangerous in light of this dastardly Russian interference. (Top military officials and the commander in Afghanistan later admitted the bounty program “had not been corroborated by intelligence agencies and that they do not believe any attacks in Afghanistan that resulted in American casualties can be directly tied to it,” but by then, the job was done).

    And thus did this union of pro-war Democrats, Cheney-led neocons, the intelligence community and their chosen mainstream media outlets succeed in providing the perfectly crafted tool at the most opportune moment to justify blocking an end to America’s longest war. That is precisely the same coalition that drowned U.S. politics for more than three years in the sustained, monomaniacal disinformation campaign about Putin’s takeover of the U.S.

    As Trump again signals that he intends in the lame-duck session to withdraw troops from Afghanistan, this same united coalition is working desperately to block it. First, Democratic Senator Tammy Duckworth of Illinois angrily condemned the withdrawal plan with deranged reasoning: that Generals are against withdrawal (as though we have no civilian control of the military); troops will come home “in body bags” not by staying in Afghanistan but by leaving it; and that withdrawing U.S. forces after a mere nineteen years of fighting will endanger “our national security.”

    The new ruling coalition then stepped forward to fortify Duckworth’s demand that troops remain. Obama’s former National Security Advisor Susan Rice — reportedly slated to become Biden’s Secretary of State — pointed to the pronouncement by Brett McGurk, an early ruler of post-invasion Iraq and key advocate of the Bush/Cheney “surge” who now works (of course) for NBC News, denouncing Trump’s withdrawal plan as “diplomatic malpractice” that “erodes trust and confidence in the United States.” Playing the role of Liz Cheney in this debate was GOP Congressman Dan Crenshaw of Texas, who supported Rice and Duckworth by attacking independent Congressman Justin Amash for advocating troop withdrawal.

    From there, Bill Kristol — a key neocon ally of McGurk during the Bush/Cheney years who is also now a beloved MSNBC pundit — not only denounced the efforts to withdraw troops from Afghanistan but in general warned of the dangers of Trump’s attempt to remove troops from other parts of the world. As they usually do, Kristol’s pro-imperialism tweets went massively viral due to the large social media following he has amassed from MSNBC appearances and his liberal fan base:

    Here we see the new coalition of power that has formed during the Trump era: hawkish and corporatist Democrats, united when necessary with pro-war/neocon Republicans, Bush/Cheney operatives, the national security state and large corporate media outlets outside of Fox News.

    Democratic national security luminaries have spent the last four years formally uniting with Bush/Cheney neocons to prepare to take power in a new Democratic administration (though it must be remembered that neocons, as this 2014 New York Times Op-Ed by Jacob Heilbrunn explained, saw the writing on the wall long before Trump that the growing anti-war strain in the GOP (as evidenced by the success of Ron Paul’s candidacy) meant that their best hope for a posture of Endless War resided in re-migrating back to what they thought at the time would be the Hillary-run Democratic Party).

    The other key components of this coalition are Silicon Valley giants and Wall Street, both of which overwhelmingly donated to the Biden/Harris campaign and the Democratic Party generally. The primary weapon tech companies offer is not just huge sums of money — though that of course is welcomed and useful — but information control: I continue to regard the decision of Twitter and Facebook to block and suppress the ability to disseminate The New York Post story on Hunter Biden’s laptop as one of the most shocking and alarming events of the last four years: political censorship cheered by most of the pro-Biden press.

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    But that jarring pre-election internet censorship on behalf of this Democratic-led coalition is just the tip of the iceberg of what is to come. And the key players in that internet censorship campaign — the propagandists who will lay the groundwork for it — are the corporate U.S. media outlets who have long been and still are a key part of this ruling coalition.

    When Silicon Valley giants began to see the massive potential of social media platforms such as Facebook and Twitter, and even earlier when Google assumed dominance of search engines, they had no intention to censor content. Indeed, they wanted to renounce any responsibility to regulate discourse: not because they are noble (though many did have a libertarian belief in the value of a free internet) but because they wanted to assume the far more profitable and less burdensome model of AT&T: we are not a publishing company that decides what can and cannot be heard, but rather just a content-neutral platform for anyone to communicate (if Alex Jones calls Milo Yiannopoulos to plan a rally, nobody expects AT&T to terminate their call or service: that’s the hands-off model Silicon Valley giants envisioned).

    These companies began censoring the internet because that responsibility was foisted on them — principally by corporate media outlets that ginned up anger over the content they were allowing on their platforms, and then by Democratic Party politicians who blamed Facebook and Twitter (but not themselves) for their 2016 defeat.

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    Numerous media outlets — NBC News, CNN, The New York Times — now employ stables of reporters whose primary function seems to be to act as hall monitor tattletales over the internet, flagging whatever person or group think they deserves to be censored from social media and then petulantly whining that Facebook and Twitter are failing in their sacred duties to regulate discourse.

    Part of the motive is arrogant self-interest: ever since the emergence of Bush-era blogs, they have despised any ability of uncredentialed serfs to disseminate information outside of their benevolent control. Watch here as Vox writer Dave Roberts announces on a show this week that the public cannot possibly be trusted to communicate freely without “gatekeepers” — meaning people like him and his friends — deciding what can and cannot be heard:

    Read the rest of the report here.

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  • CDC Director: "All Schools Should Remain Open"
    CDC Director: "All Schools Should Remain Open"

    Tyler Durden

    Thu, 11/19/2020 – 20:43

    In a stunning rebuke to various governors across the nation who have kneejerked their authoritarian responses to the COVID casedemic and shut schools almost universally, today’s Trump administration Coronavirus Task Force briefing will come as a shocker.

    Having explained in detail how vaccines will be delivered to all Americans (as opposed to the less-priveleged priority of the Biden administration), CDC Director Bob Redfield dropped a “science” tape-bomb as he explained – using the science – why America’s schools should remain open!

     “At no time has the CDC suggested school should be closed…

    …All school should remain open. It is the safest place for children to be.”

    As NY, the largest school district in the nation, is set to close on a de minimus positivity rate, Redfield exclaims that following the data shows “there has been no intra-school transmission and we must make sure not to make emotional decisions when the data strongly supports making sure schools remain open.”

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    Redfield concludes:

    “It is counterproductive to close schools.”

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    After Redfield spoke, Dr. Elinore McCance-Katz, HHS Asst. Secretary (in charge of the nation’s mental health), reiterated his comments that schools must be open and that “we have tools to keep our schools open.”

    The reason is simple, she explained:

    “We know about the emotional distress, child abuse & neglect” that these lockdowns are causing.

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    We look forward to the Left’s “scientists” arguing their way out of this…After vowing to listen to the CDC ‘experts’, we assume now, given pressure from teacher’s unions, the Biden administration will politicize science some more.

    Watch the briefing here (Redfield begins around 1:43:00 in and is followed by McCance-Katz)…

    OPEN THE F**KING SCHOOLS AND GET THE KIDS BACK TO THEIR FRIENDS!

    And minutes after this statement from the CDC, this headline hits…

    *CALIFORNIA ORDERS 10 P.M. CURFEW FOR 94% OF STATE’S POPULATION

    Gov. Gavin Newsom has ordered a curfew for all California counties in the purple tier. The curfew will affect 41 of the state’s 58 counties — a vast majority of the population.

    The curfew, which the state is calling a “limited Stay at Home Order,” will be in effect from 10 p.m. to 5 a.m. starting Saturday.

    The restrictions between those hours will be similar to the stay-at-home order that was in effect in March. That means all non-essential work, movement and gatherings will have to stop in all purple tier counties. Advertisement – story continues below

    The curfew is set to remain in effect until Dec. 21 at 5 a.m.

    You cannot make this shit up! Show us the data Gavin that supports a 10pm curfew?

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  • Despite Vaccine Hope, Travel Spending Won't Recover Until 2024 
    Despite Vaccine Hope, Travel Spending Won't Recover Until 2024 

    Tyler Durden

    Thu, 11/19/2020 – 20:40

    Despite the positive news surrounding drugmaker Pfizer and Moderna’s COVID-19 vaccine development, along with encouraging results from Oxford-AstraZeneca’s vaccine, readers should realize that vaccines may not revert today’s chaotic world to pre-covid times.

    For instance, Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates warned Tuesday at the New York Times’ Dealbook conference that the virus pandemic will fundamentally reshape business travel and the office experience forever.

    Gates said, “my prediction would be that over 50% of business travel and over 30% of days in the office will go away.” 

    He added, “We will go to the office somewhat, we’ll do some business travel, but dramatically less.” 

    What Gates suggests is that structural change, such as video conferencing and remote working, will fundamentally change how corporations conduct business. These changes will have negative impacts on the travel industry and commercial real estate. 

    Given some of the structural changes in play – it’s becoming clear that a vaccine will not be the saving grace as pitched by Wall Street and the Trump administration. The freight train of structural change has left the station as a new economic order is being laid down for the decade ahead and will produce permanent declines for specific industries. 

    The air travel industry will be one of those to experience a slump that could last for years. Business travel, the backbone of air travel demand, as Gates explains above, will be halved. 

    For more clarity on this topic, the U.S. Travel Association (USTA) projects travel spending will decline by more than $500 billion in 2020 and may not recover back to pre-covid levels until 2024.  

    USTA said the dramatic decline in travel spending reflects the plunge in business travel. The group said the travel industry has lost 40%, or 3.5 million jobs, and warned more than one million jobs could be lost if additional government bailouts aren’t seen by year-end.

    The pessimistic forecast comes as vaccine headlines have generated buzz on Wall Street of an imminent economic recovery. Still, as we highlighted above, no matter what vaccines are commercialized and distributed, there are structural changes underway that will forever reshape how the economy functions.

    The development of vaccines is the old “chase the carrot” trick used by the government and Wall Street to remind people how these wonder drugs could take us back to pre-covid days. Just like a carrot was tied to a stick in front of a wagon’s mule to make them step forward and walk ahead … the mule was never able to reach the carrot. 

    Plain and simple – reverting to pre-covid days could be an unreachable goal. 

  • Trump Vs Biden: Will The Future Belong To The Patriots Or The Globalists?
    Trump Vs Biden: Will The Future Belong To The Patriots Or The Globalists?

    Tyler Durden

    Thu, 11/19/2020 – 20:20

    Authored by Matthew Ehret via The Strategic Culture Foundation,

    It is an undeniable fact that the republic has entered one of the most dangerous crises of its short existence. This is not only due to the disputed election results of November 3rd, but also to a multitude of other factors beyond American borders, including the global financial crisis which a certain pandemic has unleashed upon the world, and slide towards a major world war between great powers that has accelerated chaotically in recent years.

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    As unpopular as it might be to state in polite society, as of this writing it is still impossible to state with 100% certainty that Joe Biden will in fact be inaugurated on January 20, 2021. The simple reason for this is that verifiable evidence of vast partisan vote fraud tied to the highest echelons of British Intelligence have mount with every passing day with Dominion voting systems most recently accused of erasing 2.7 million Trump votes across the nation, and giving 220 000 pro-Trump votes given to Biden in Pennsylvania (along with hundreds of other vote counting anomalies and technology glitches across all major swing states). These and other major signs of mass vote fraud have giving rise to reasonable questions of the validity of the official results which will be taken to the courts as Gen. Michael Flynn’s Attorney Sidney Powell eloquently laid out recently.

    Trump, Biden and the Oncoming Meltdown

    By now most people reading this are aware (or should be aware) that the trans Atlantic financial system has been set to melt down under a $1.5 quadrillion derivatives time bomb being held together by a mix of wishful thinking, hyperinflationary money printing and vast unpayable securitized debts waiting to default. It should also come as no surprise that the Great Reset Agenda designed to coordinate the “post-COVID world order” has nothing to do with any actual pandemic, and everything to do with imposing a new bankers’ dictatorship onto the nations of the earth. If you are uncertain about these claims, I invite you to read my recent study “What the Great Reset Architects Don’t Want you to Know About Economics”.

    Both Trump and Biden profess to support American leadership to the world going into this storm, but both men operate on very much opposing paradigms of what this means, and what foreign policy tradition should be activated.

    Where Biden has championed the idea that “America should lead the world” in opposition to the dangerous rise in “authoritarianism, nationalism and illiberalism” giving the reigns of foreign policy over to a team packed with hawkish representatives of the Military Industrial Complex, Trump has done something different.

    On November 9 the incumbent president fired Mark Esper (possibly to subvert a planned coup) and instated General Christopher Miller to the position of Defense Secretary who has called for a total end to the 19 year Afghan war stating: “we are not a people of perpetual war. It is the antithesis of everything for which we stand and for which our ancestors fought. All wars must end.”

    Having vocalized his desires to return the USA to its traditional protectionist, non-interventionist agenda repeatedly over four years, Trump famously characterized the battle at hand as one of “patriots against the globalists.”

    And yet, despite these facts, many apparently intelligent people have celebrated that the “bad orange man” has finally been ousted and normality may once again occur.

    Hogwash.

    In an April 2020 Foreign Policy article, Joe Biden called for the re-assertion of American leadership of the world order stating that “for over 70 years, the United States under democratic and republican presidents, played a leading role in writing the rules” of the world order. Predicting the two possible scenarios that will befall the world should the USA continue to “abdicate our leadership” as Trump has done, Biden says that either: 

    1) Someone else takes America’s place as global hegemon that doesn’t “advance our interests and values or

     2) “No one will and chaos will ensue”.

    But wait a minute!

    Shouldn’t there be a third option in Biden’s crystal ball? What about the option of a world defined by sovereign nations working in win-win cooperation and mutual self interest? Sadly, from a zero-sum mind that can only think in “balance of power” terms, this third scenario cannot exist.

    The paradox for such little minds, however is that the very essence of America’s emerging from WWII in a leading position that Biden praises is entirely premised on the understanding that the world is more than a zero sum system.

    The Forgotten Multi-Polar Traditions of the USA

    From the drafting of the UN Charter in 1941, the formulation of the Bretton Woods system in 1944, to the UN Declaration of Human Rights in 1948, there is no doubt that there is very little that America has not directly influenced.

    While this leadership is undeniable and often objectively destructive as sin, it is too easily forgotten that the UN Charter, as outlined by Franklin Roosevelt was premised on the belief that America must never become an empire but merely help those in need by providing the means of industrial development. This was essentially understood as the internationalization of the New Deal which included social safety nets, bank regulation, productive work guarantees and infrastructure projects to all other nations aspiring independence across Africa, Asia and the Americas or struggling the heal from the destructive effects of the war.

    FDR’s vision for the IMF/World Bank mandates were never to reconquer poor nations under a new system of debt slavery and conditionalities, but to extend productive credit for long term megaprojects that were in the common aims of mankind and which angered Churchill immensely.

    Most importantly, this vision was premised on the need for a trust-based U.S.-Russia-China alliance that never would have permitted the emergence of a bipolar Cold War.

    Working alongside such anti-imperial co-thinkers as Republican leader Wendell Willkie, Vice President Henry Wallace, economist Harry Dexter White, confidante Harry Hopkins, Asst. Secretary of State Sumner Welles and Attorney General Robert Jackson (to name a few), this small but powerful group of patriots representing both parties, worked vigorously to ensure not only that the Wall Street/City of London Frankenstein Monster of Nazism would be put down but that Churchill’s vision of a restored British Imperial system would not succeed.

    The True Spirit of the United Nations

    Unlike the earlier “League of Nations” which intended to destroy all national sovereignty in the wake of WWI, the United Nations was always meant to become a platform for dialogue, and economic multilateral trust-building much more in harmony with the multipolar alliance now sweeping the world (and scaring the hell out of the thing that controls Joe Biden).

    If this is hard to believe, let me cite article one:

    “To maintain international peace and security, and to that end: to take effective collective measures for the prevention and removal of threats to the peace, and for the suppression of acts of aggression or other breaches of the peace, and to bring about by peaceful means, and in conformity with the principles of justice and international law, adjustment or settlement of international disputes or situations which might lead to a breach of the peace

    To develop friendly relations among nations based on respect for the principle of equal rights and self-determination of peoples, and to take other appropriate measures to strengthen universal peace;

    To achieve international co-operation in solving international problems of an economic, social, cultural, or humanitarian character, and in promoting and encouraging respect for human rights and for fundamental freedoms for all without distinction as to race, sex, language, or religion; and

    To be a centre for harmonizing the actions of nations in the attainment of these common ends.”

    These principles were expanded even further to the Universal Declaration of Human Rights on December 10, 1948 which re-iterated the founding principles of America’s Declaration of Independence- extending those unalienable rights to all mankind as FDR envisioned stating in its preamble:

    “Whereas recognition of the inherent dignity and of the equal and inalienable rights of all members of the human family is the foundation of freedom, justice and peace in the world,

    “Whereas disregard and contempt for human rights have resulted in barbarous acts which have outraged the conscience of mankind, and the advent of a world in which human beings shall enjoy freedom of speech and belief and freedom from fear and want has been proclaimed as the highest aspiration of the common people,

    “Whereas it is essential, if man is not to be compelled to have recourse, as a last resort, to rebellion against tyranny and oppression, that human rights should be protected by the rule of law,

    “Whereas it is essential to promote the development of friendly relations between nations,

    “Whereas the peoples of the United Nations have in the Charter reaffirmed their faith in fundamental human rights, in the dignity and worth of the human person and in the equal rights of men and women and have determined to promote social progress and better standards of life in larger freedom,

    “Whereas Member States have pledged themselves to achieve, in co-operation with the United Nations, the promotion of universal respect for and observance of human rights and fundamental freedoms,

    “Whereas a common understanding of these rights and freedoms is of the greatest importance for the full realization of this pledge,

    “Now, Therefore THE GENERAL ASSEMBLY proclaims THIS UNIVERSAL DECLARATION OF HUMAN RIGHTS as a common standard of achievement for all peoples and all nations, to the end that every individual and every organ of society, keeping this Declaration constantly in mind, shall strive by teaching and education to promote respect for these rights and freedoms and by progressive measures, national and international, to secure their universal and effective recognition and observance, both among the peoples of Member States themselves and among the peoples of territories under their jurisdiction.”

    These were the ideas that were meant to give life to the “Four Freedoms” first enunciated by President Roosvelt in 1941 and re-asserted by his anti-imperial Vice President Henry Wallace in 1942.

    Now admittedly this positive American foreign policy outlook which launched the post-war age is a far cry from anything the world has come to recognize in the USA since the emergence of the Cold War… and especially since the murder of John F Kennedy who had done much to resist America’s full takeover by this newly revised British Empire (which some have chosen in recent years to label “the deep state”).

    Much like the U.S. Constitution itself, these principles largely remained ink on parchment as a new age of Cold Warriors, Rhodes Scholars and Fabians directed from British Intelligence created NATO, divided the world among the lighter skinned haves and darker skinned have nots while unleashing a system of endless wars onto the earth under a new Pax Americana.

    These are the forces like Lord Mark Malloch Brown and George Soros who together have poured billions of dollars into promoting the post-nation state order using anti-UN Charter doctrines like Responsibility to Protect (R2P), overthrowing governments with color revolutions and running a current coup against President Trump.

    Today a small window is still open for a renewal of the forgotten traditions of the American republican traditions that were upheld by such leaders as John Quincy Adams, Lincoln, Grant, Garfield, McKinley, Harding, FDR and JFK. President Trump has clearly taken a stand in opposition to the reconquest of the republic by the deep state and it remains to be seen if the American people have the fortitude to do everything in their power to organize themselves in defense of the republic and civilization more generally.

  • WHO Officially Counsels Against Prescribing Gilead's Remdesivir To Treat COVID-19
    WHO Officially Counsels Against Prescribing Gilead's Remdesivir To Treat COVID-19

    Tyler Durden

    Thu, 11/19/2020 – 20:00

    The world mostly forgot about remdesivir it seems, after the badly overhyped medication developed initially by Gilead Sciences to treat ebola failed to show any efficacy in severely ill patients according to a massive WHO study.

    While the FDA nevertheless approved the medication, arguing the data had shown it had proven modestly effective in treating mild to moderate cases of the virus, the WHO had already made up its mind. And on Thursday evening, the WHO officially recommended that doctors shouldn’t prescribe the drug to treat patients suffering from COVID-19.

    This, despite all those assurances from Dr. Fauci that the drug, which prior to COVID had been a major money loser for Gilead, would revolutionize care related to the virus.

    Remdesivir was among the cocktail of medications delivered to President Trump, though the president largely credited his recovery to the antibody medication developed by Regeneron.

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    The recommendation is a so-called living guideline, which means it could be changed based on the fast-moving research. The WHO attributed its decision to four different studies involving more than 7,000 patients.

    “The antiviral drug remdesivir is not suggested for patients admitted to hospital with Covid-19, regardless of how severely ill they are, because there is currently no evidence that it improves survival or the need for ventilation,” an expert panel of the WHO wrote in the British Medical Journal on Friday.

    The WHO is also moving to suspend remdesivir from its prequalification list, something that will effectively make it impossible for developing countries to obtain the (apparently useless) antiviral.

    Gilead has so far refused to accept data showing remdesivir has little benefit for COVID patients. The company has already booked $873 million in remdesivir sales last quarter, and warned investors that Q4 could be a flop if remdesivir flops.

    It’s a shame, really: back in the spring, Gilead published every scrap of news about remdesivir, and practically every time they were rewarded with a pop not only in Gilead’s shares, but in the broader market. Sure enough, Gilead shares took a hit on the news, sliding nearly 2%.

    Too bad all those equity pumps were for nothing.

  • The Rise Of Voodoo Economics
    The Rise Of Voodoo Economics

    Tyler Durden

    Thu, 11/19/2020 – 19:40

    Authored by Jeff Thomas via InternationalMan.com,

    The new millennium has been marked by increasingly dramatic economic change…

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    Economics is (or should be) easy to understand. It’s essentially the production, consumption and transfer of wealth. The transfer of wealth normally takes place as a result of the balance between scarcity and demand.

    However, over the ages, there have always been those who have sought to alter or pervert economics for their own ends.

    In recent times, the scams created have become both more complex and more profitable and have been played on a grander scale. Taxation, debt creation and inflation have become key techniques in extracting wealth from people on a wholesale basis, generally without those people understanding that they are essentially milk cows waiting for Farmer Dimon or Farmer Powell to come out to the barn with the milk pail.

    As complex and confusing as modern economic milking has become, it is, in essence, simple in nature, if we can manage to see through the smokescreen.

    But as stated above, in recent decades, the game has taken on new dimension.

    An economic crisis of major proportions has been brewing, and now that the crisis has begun, the scam must be elaborated upon in order to pull it off, whilst protecting the scam artists from being blamed for what they’ve created.

    Never before have we witnessed such a level of flimflam – a proliferation of talking heads touting “economic principles” that have no foundation whatever.

    Whether it’s Modern Monetary Theory as a whole or any of the plethora of programmes that ride on its coattails – such as the Green New Deal, quantitative easing or the THRIVE agenda – around every corner there are new efforts that I regard as “Voodoo Economics.”

    The economic circus has arrived in town. And as with any circus, there are not only the main events, but distractions of every kind, created to maximise confusion.

    It might be said that the reigning priestess of Voodoo Economics is IMF Managing Director Kristalina Georgieva. As the Marie Laveau of the IMF, she has been highly visible of late, in presenting the IMF’s “Three Imperatives.”

    In her presentations, she speaks of these surefire problem solvers, not in economic terms, but in “woke” politically correct terms. In her introductions, she describes them as no less than the path to a “sisterhood and brotherhood” of humanity.

    The first of the Three Imperatives is “The Right Economic Policies.”

    She describes this rather vague category as “prudent macroeconomic policies” that include dramatically increased debt and “private sector participation.” This may be taken to mean a plan for the bill of increased debt to be passed to the private sector. (i.e., “We run up the tab; you pay the tab.”) This is the essence of the category, with most of the rhetoric being focused on buzzwords such as “resilience,” “competitiveness,” “confidence,” etc., which, although sounding encouraging, don’t offer any real explanation as to how the plan will be carried out.

    The Second Imperative is “Policies Must Be for People.”

    This sounds okay in principle, but again doesn’t really offer anything specific. She explains that it encompasses social re-engineering to reduce “disparities” and to accelerate gender equality. She further states that a move is necessary toward central funding for health and education, plus a digital economy that will be “critical for growth and development in the future.” Still, though, nothing specific. Mostly what we have here is feel-good platitudes.

    The Third Imperative is simply “Climate Change.” which she states is “posing profound threats to growth and prosperity.”

    A generation or two ago, those who watched the Miss USA contest would laugh as one contestant after another, when asked what her personal goal was, stated, “World peace.”

    The contestants offered no expansion on their comment, as to how they intended to accomplish this, which tended to brand the contestants as very pretty airheads.

    Fast-forward to the present time, and it’s no longer just the Paul Krugmans out there who are touting airhead notions of how to deal with the world economy. Everyone at the top – whether it’s Jamie Dimon, Jerome Powell or Kristalina Georgieva – is offering Voodoo Economics as the cure-all for the woes that have been created by the governments and central banks.

    In a sense, this is not new. John Maynard Keynes, having become a Fabian at his alma mater, the London School of Economics, wrote his 1936 book, The General Theory of Employment, Interest and Money, as a means by which collectivism could be created worldwide through the awarding of economic control to central governments.

    Not surprisingly, in the eighty-four years since its publication, it’s still a runaway hit with… governments. It’s rare if not impossible to find a government that does not wholeheartedly agree that it should be entrusted with all the wealth in the world and have the authority to decide how it should be parceled out.

    Of course, there’s a bit of a flaw in this concept, in that governments don’t actually create wealth. They may print currency, but wealth itself is created by those who invest their money in the creation of goods and services.

    Governments are essentially a form of parasite – a tapeworm that feeds off the host, the actual creator of wealth. Interestingly, Mister Keynes himself, just prior to his death in 1946 stated that his theory didn’t really work – that since government is not a disinterested party, it would not act in the interests of the economy, but in its own interests.

    The new IMF advert campaign, as presented by Ms. Georgieva, is utterly Keynesian. It essentially says, “The party isn’t really over. All that we need do is to print money and champion politically correct causes and we can once again fill the punchbowl.”

    As she points out, “Now isn’t the time to balance the books.”

    The new programme is short on actual explanation as to how the Voodoo Economics will be carried out, but it will come as an inspiration to those who, at a time when hope is in decline, are only too happy to jump to the next empty hope in order to avoid facing the fact that economic reality is knocking at the door.

    Mister Keynes did not write on economics as Adam Smith did. He wrote not on what economics is, but what he would like it to be if it were used to herald in collectivism.

    The fact is that economics, at its heart, is fairly straightforward. It’s the study of what really exists and will play out, regardless of the latest Voodoo that’s being peddled.

    As such, as the crisis that has now begun unfolds, those who choose to follow the Voodoo can expect to find themselves as casualties.

    There will be greater hope for those who choose reality, however more painful it may be to face.

    *  *  *

    The truth is, we’re on the cusp of a economic crisis that could eclipse anything we’ve seen before. And most people won’t be prepared for what’s coming. That’s exactly why bestselling author Doug Casey and his team just released a free report with all the details on how to survive an economic collapse. Click here to download the PDF now.

  • Google Searches For 'Reloading Ammo' Explode Amid Nationwide Shortage 
    Google Searches For 'Reloading Ammo' Explode Amid Nationwide Shortage 

    Tyler Durden

    Thu, 11/19/2020 – 19:20

    Americans are panic searching again. This time it’s not where to buy toilet paper online, but instead learning more about reloading ammunition as the virus pandemic and social unrest has sparked shortages of ammo and guns. 

    Ever since the first round of virus lockdowns that began in March, ammunition prices have surged because of unprecedented demand. Some of the hardest bullets to find this past summer, that is, if one wanted to purchase bulk, as we noted in April and August (see: here & here), was 9mm.  

    And, of course, a shortage and skyrocketing costs for factory-loaded ammunition forced many Americans to investigate alternative options in panic hoarding bullets.

    As shown below, an eruption in US internet searches for “9mm Reloading” can be seen. 

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    Reloading, also called handloading, is the process of making firearm cartridges by manually assembling the individual components rather than purchasing factory-loaded ammunition. Reloading can easily be done at home. 

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    In fact, for readers who are curious about reloading ammo, considering one day you might wake up to a Walmart headline where guns and ammo are banned – well, it might make sense to at least explore the option.

    A simple YouTube search of “how to reload 9mm” yields dozens of videos.

    You can bet a Biden presidency would result in increased pressure to ban guns and limit ammo. 

  • Joe Biden Leaves Cannabis Reform Out Of Updated Policy Pledges
    Joe Biden Leaves Cannabis Reform Out Of Updated Policy Pledges

    Tyler Durden

    Thu, 11/19/2020 – 19:00

    Authored by John Vibes via TheMindUnleashed.com,

    It appears that President-elect Joe Biden may already be falling short on some of his campaign promises. When the Biden campaign released their transition plan, advocates immediately noticed that reform of cannabis laws was not stated in the plan, despite many promises on the campaign trail. While drug law reform and cannabis legalization are not specifically mentioned in the plan, it is possible that these issues could fall under the umbrella of criminal justice reform.

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    The new page says Biden is working to “strengthen America’s commitment to justice, and reform our criminal justice system” and includes specific measures, such as a ban on police chokeholds and creating a national oversight commission to track law enforcement abuses, but cannabis legalization or decriminalization is mysteriously absent. 

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    His campaign site, which is still up and running, includes a section titled, “Plan for Black America” where he promises to “decriminalize the use of cannabis and automatically expunge all prior cannabis use convictions.”

    The fact that this language was in the pre-election press release but missing from the most recent ones has many activists very concerned.

    A Biden campaign spokesman told Marijuana Moment that “Nothing has changed,” and said that Biden has many important policy plans that are not officially listed on the website yet.

    Activists have good reason to be concerned that Biden won’t follow through on his promise, considering that he was one of the architects of the drug war and has been against cannabis legalization throughout most of his career.

    Despite the changing attitudes towards cannabis legalization, people arrested for cannabis still make up a significant portion of cases that come through the country’s criminal court system.

    According to the FBI’s recent Uniform Crime Report, more people were arrested for cannabis possession last year than for all violent crimes put together.

    The data showed that 545,602 people were arrested in the US for cannabis-related crimes last year. Meanwhile, just 495,871 people were arrested for violent crimes.

    Furthermore, the vast majority of the people who got arrested for cannabis were not accused of selling or trafficking the substance, but just for simple possession. 500,395 of the total cannabis arrests last year, or about 92%, were for possession, which is still more than the number of people who were arrested for violent crimes.

    Overall, cannabis arrests have been going down nationwide due to the spread of legalization. Last year, cannabis arrests were down by 18% when compared with 2018.

    As suspected, the FBI’s data showed that people were less likely to get arrested for cannabis in states where it was legal or available for medical use, with eastern states seeing far more arrests.

    According to the report, roughly 53% of all cannabis arrests last year took place in the northeastern part of the country, where cannabis laws are still catching up with the west.

    People of color are also at a greater risk of being targeted for cannabis arrests. According to a report from the ACLU, 2018 data showed that people of color were 3.6 times more likely to be arrested for cannabis possession than white people, despite using the substance at the same rates.

  • California Adds Curfew To Growing List Of Restrictions, Texas Sees Record Jump In COVID Cases: Live Updates
    California Adds Curfew To Growing List Of Restrictions, Texas Sees Record Jump In COVID Cases: Live Updates

    Tyler Durden

    Thu, 11/19/2020 – 18:41

    Summary:

    • LA County reports new record jump
    • Texas reports new record jump
    • California announces curfew on 94% of the state
    • New Hampshire imposes statewide mask mandate
    • France sees drop in hospitalizations for 3rd day
    • Rhode Island to impose 2 week pause next week
    • CDC warns Americans not to travel for Thanksgiving
    • Moderna CEO says vaccines can be made faster
    • Trump tweets on vaccines
    • AZ confirms vaccine safe and effective in older patients
    • Global cases top 56 million
    • World reports more than 600k new cases
    • Minnesota governor latest to close indoor dining
    • Finland faces rapid spike
    • Tokyo imposes emergency measures
    • NYC schools close
    • Russian cases top 2 million
    • Croatia plans 2nd lockdown
    • WHO Europe director says lockdowns are a ‘last resort’

    * * *

    Update (1835ET): Texas just posted 12,293 new cases in the last 24 hours, smashing its mid-July record, just hours after Gov Abbott said he wouldn’t impose a return to lockdown status on the Lone Star state.

    LA County also reported a “dangerous acceleration” in COVID spread with 5,031 new cases today, the biggest one-day increase on record.

    * * *

    Update (1750ET):  California Gov Gavin Newsom rolled out a new 2200-0500 curfew that will apply to the 94% of the state that’s now under the highest level of COVID restrictions.

    The new “limited stay at home order” (at least that’s what officials are calling it) will require all “nonessential” personnel to stay home overnight.

    It affects counties under the “purple” designation of the state’s new color-coded system – that’s about 94% of the state’s population.

    In the few hours that have passed since Rhode Island implemented its two week pause, Texas Gov Greg Abbott has spoken out and ruled out a return to lockdown status to combat surging virus hospitalizations across the second most-populous US state, while the head of the CDC openly declares that closing schools isn’t the answer for combating the nationwide viral resurgence.

    Elsewhere in New England, New Hampshire Gov Chris Sununu imposed a statewide mask mandate Thursday, saying it’ll help keep the economy open as infections rise to records.

    In Ohio, health officials published their first purple alert, the highest level on a four-tier warning system.

    Earlier, New York Gov Andrew Cuomo increased restrictions for several areas, including New Rochelle, a suburb known for being at the center of the state’s first major outbreak.

    In France, meanwhile, hospitalizations declined for a third day as officials proclaim that the new lockdown is starting to stifle infections.

    * * *

    Update (1355ET): The state of Rhode Island, which is, by land area, the smallest in the union, has just decided to impose a two-week “pause” (don’t call it a lockdown).

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    Starting Thursday, the governor has banned Rhode Islanders from socializing outside their households with members of more than one other household. On Thursday, data from the Health Department showed 921 new infections and a daily positivity rate of 5.8%, with 15,819 tests administered the previous day.

    * * *

    Update (1200ET): The CDC is urging the 50 million Americans planning to travel during the holiday season to instead stay home, and find ways to gather with their family members in a socially distanced way. Doctors and government officials are claiming that even gathering with one other household is too much of a risk. As WSJ points out, the warning has grown more urgent in recent weeks, shifting from officials discouraging travel and large gatherings to outright pleading with the public to stay put and stay away from others. States across the country, from California, to Michigan, to New York and elsewhere

    Some colleges and universities are ramping up COVID-19 testing ahead of the holiday, encouraging students to check if they are contagious before getting on planes and bringing the virus home with them. The University of Arizona conducted 34% more tests in the week ended Nov. 13 than it did in the prior-week period, promoting a “testing blitz.” Meanwhile, the State University of New York system is requiring all on-campus students—about 140,000 people—to be tested within 10 days before their departures.

    * * *

    Update (0930ET): Speaking at Bloomberg’s New Economy Forum earlier today, Moderna CEO and billionaire Stephane Bancel said even a modest investment could help his company create vaccines much more quickly during the next emerging epidemic. Moderna brought its vaccine from an idea to the verge of regulatory approval in roughly 300 days, Bancel said.

    However, if international health authorities invested in early testing of vaccines against 10 or 20 of the most-threatening emerging virus types, Moderna could potentially shave several months off those timelines next time around.

    During the panel, Bancel added that he expects the final results from the mRNA COVID trial to be ready in a week or so. Speaking about the trial, Bancel said he was “excited” about the data so far.

    “What makes me more excited is the fact that 11 people with severe disease, they were all on placebo,” Bancel said. That suggests that not only will the vaccine prevent almost all cases, but that the remaining few infections will be mild.

    However, people still need to employ public-health measures like wearing masks. “The vaccine is not a silver bullet,” he said.

    * * *

    Update (0750ET): President Trump tweeted that “VACCINES ARE COMING FAST!!!”

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    Stocks remain headed for a lower open still as the US faces more new restrictions ahead of next week’s Thanksgiving holiday.

    * * *

    AstraZeneca shares popped Thursday morning after Oxford, the company’s partner in its effort to develop a vaccine (known as “AZD1222”), offered some more details to flesh out the ‘Phase 2’ results it released last month. Though the outcome was already known, trial data was published in the Lancet today.

    After a long week of more meaningful vaccine headlines, the market wasn’t much impressed by Oxford reaffirming that the vaccine produced a strong immune response even in more vulnerable seniors.

    AZ’s adenovirus-vector vaccine is being tested in a combined Phase 2/Phase 3 trial, though it suffered some notable setbacks, including having its US-based human trial suspended for a month. A subject in one of the trials reportedly died, though it was later revealed that they had received the placebo vaccine.

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    Source: Bloomberg

    Late last month, the company confirmed the broad strokes of the Phase 2 findings (ie that the vaccine is safe and effective, particularly in older patients). And although Wall Street analysts responding to the news pointed out that this is merely a confirmation of what was previously known, given all the nasty rumors about the AZ vaccine, it seems AZ has decided to deliver a double-dose of this news to the public as skepticism of vaccines remains widespread.

    Although AZ shares saw a modest pop, US futures pointed toward a lower open on Thursday. Have markets wised up? Maybe. But for whatever reason, these latest headlines failed to produce the widespread reaction seen just the other day.

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    In other news, after the US surpassed 250,000 confirmed deaths last night, Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz announced new measures to combat the spread of COVID-19 in his state.

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    Walz is shutting down indoor dining at bars and restaurants, closing gyms and placing organized youth sports on hold for four weeks, on a day when Minnesota recorded nearly 70 new deaths. Like many other states, Minnesota is struggling with a dramatic increase in hospitalizations.

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    12 states reported more than 5k new cases on Wednesday, as the 7-day average for the entire US creeps toward 160k.

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    Internationally, the biggest news overnight comes out of Russia, which has just become the latest country to top 2 million cases, joining an exclusive club that includes only the US, Brazil, India, France and now Russia, with the fifth-most cases globally. As we reported yesterday, NYC schools are returning to remote-only Thursday, Tokyo is raising its alert level to the highest setting (as was previously announced), while South Australia initiated one of the toughest lockdowns ever imposed in the English-speaking world, as health officials claim the region has been afflicted by a particularly deadly strain of the virus.

    Globally, the world has topped 56.4 million cases after reporting more than 600k yesterday. The 7-day average for global cases remains at a record high.

    Here’s a roundup of coronavirus news from overnight and Thursday morning:

    Croatia, one of the few European Union nations that hasn’t imposed a second lockdown, is finally planning to tighten measures as cases reach new record highs (Source: Bloomberg).

    WHO’s Europe Director Hans Kluge said Thursday that lockdowns are last-resort measures and could be avoidable if mask usage tops 95% (Source: Bloomberg).

    After faring much better than most other countries this year, Finland is now facing a rapid escalation of the pandemic, health authorities warned (Source: Bloomberg).

    European Union leaders will today seek a common approach to lifting lockdowns ahead of the end-of-year holidays, according to a diplomatic note sent to national delegations before a scheduled virtual summit (Source: Bloomberg).

  • Calculate Your Real COVID Risk Based On Age And Health Picture
    Calculate Your Real COVID Risk Based On Age And Health Picture

    Tyler Durden

    Thu, 11/19/2020 – 18:40

    As the faulty-PCR-test-driven ‘casedemic‘ screams across America, the level of hysteria among media and leftist politicians is deafening. As a result of this ‘panic’, Americans face another round of draconian restrictions to their freedoms… because “science”.

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    There’s just one thing – there’s “science” on both sides of this discussion (though you wouldn’t know it based on the media’s coverage and censorship).

    So, for those who believe in real “science” and actual adult accountability, self-reliance, and responsibility, use the following calculator to understand your real risk of hospitalization, ICU admission, or death if you are exposed to COVID-19… (click the image to find the interactive calculator)

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    Source

    Perhaps, with that ‘knowledge’, Americans can make up their own minds on whether to accept the “guidances” from Democratic governors to hunker-down and talk in hushed tones to no one over Thanksgiving. As BofA writes:

    “…people have become tired of the weird world of social distancing and have started to take more chances. They are also tired of shutdowns and are increasingly willing to accept worsening public health for a more open economy.”

    We suspect, when armed with some real risk of COVID knowledge, Americans (left and right) may not be so fast to accept the authoritarian bureaucrats’ ‘solutions’.

  • Is A Double-Dip Recession On The Horizon?
    Is A Double-Dip Recession On The Horizon?


    Tyler Durden

    Thu, 11/19/2020 – 18:25

    Real Vision managing editor Ed Harrison is joined by editor Jack Farley to break down the economic impact of the partial lockdowns U.S. officials are implementing day-by-day as cases and deaths from COVID-19 spiral out of control. Ed evaluates the latest rise in joblessness claims, the exponential increase in hospitalizations, the looming expiration of the CARES Act, and the Fed’s emergency lending programs, ultimately concluding that a double-dip recession in the U.S. could be on the horizon. Lastly, Jack and Ed discuss China’s first negative-yielding bond (denominated in Euros) as well as Bitcoin’s continued surge. In the intro, Haley Draznin looks at the increase in U.S. jobless claims filed this week and its broader implications on the markets.

Digest powered by RSS Digest

Nov 19

Today’s News 19th November 2020

  • Brandon Smith: Now Is The Time For Americans To Rebel Against Lockdowns, Mask Mandates, & Forced Vaccination
    Brandon Smith: Now Is The Time For Americans To Rebel Against Lockdowns, Mask Mandates, & Forced Vaccination

    Tyler Durden

    Wed, 11/18/2020 – 23:50

    Authored by Brandon Smith via Alt-Market.us,

    With the presidential election highly contested and the mainstream media hyping the rising infection numbers, the public is now facing important questions regarding the future of the pandemic response. Some states have decided to unilaterally introduce “executive orders” to restrict citizen movements, business openings and public activities.

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    Anthony Fauci is on the news constantly, calling for families to cancel Thanksgiving and Christmas and telling Americans to just “do what we are told”. The media is generally trying to drum up fear in the minds of the populace and paint images of plague and death everywhere. If Biden does actually end up in the White House, a federalized and national high level lockdown is on the table starting in January.

    In April of this year I published an article titled ‘Waves Of Mutilation: Medical Tyranny And The Cashless Society’, which outlined a social engineering model put forward by globalists at MIT and the Imperial College of London which I called “wave theory”. The model essentially works like this:

    Governments must use the pandemic as a rationale for “waves” of restrictive lockdowns, followed by controlled re-openings of the economy and of normal human activity. Globalists claim that this will “slow” the spread of the coronavirus and save lives. However, they also openly admit that these cycles of closures and openings have other uses.

    Over time, the citizenry becomes acclimated to governmental intrusion in their everyday lives, and they get used to the idea of bureaucracy telling them what they are not allowed to do when it comes to the simplest activities. The system thus bottlenecks all human interactions to the point that we are constantly asking for permission. We become slaves to the Covid response.

    As globalist Gideon Lichfield from MIT stated in his article ‘We’re Not Going Back To Normal’:

    “Ultimately, however, I predict that we’ll restore the ability to socialize safely by developing more sophisticated ways to identify who is a disease risk and who isn’t, and discriminating—legally—against those who are.

    …one can imagine a world in which, to get on a flight, perhaps you’ll have to be signed up to a service that tracks your movements via your phone. The airline wouldn’t be able to see where you’d gone, but it would get an alert if you’d been close to known infected people or disease hot spots. There’d be similar requirements at the entrance to large venues, government buildings, or public transport hubs. There would be temperature scanners everywhere, and your workplace might demand you wear a monitor that tracks your temperature or other vital signs. Where nightclubs ask for proof of age, in future they might ask for proof of immunity—an identity card or some kind of digital verification via your phone, showing you’ve already recovered from or been vaccinated against the latest virus strains.”

    Note that Lichfield suggested that in order to participate in the normal economy you might need to show verification that you have been “vaccinated against the latest virus strains”. In other words, the elites expect there to be many more viral events or mutations AFTER Covid 19 has run its course, and the restrictions and controls we see today are meant to continue, possibly FOREVER.

    The reality is that the wave model is not a very practical plan for stopping viral spread, but it is a perfect method for conditioning people to submit to a high level of control over their personal lives that they never would have accepted otherwise. The Covid response has also been heralded by elites at the World Economic Forum as a perfect “opportunity” to initiate what they call the “Great Reset”. The reset is a plan to deconstruct what’s left of the free market capitalist system, introduce carbon controls in the name of the global warming fraud, institute a global cashless monetary system, and finally, move humanity into what they call a “shared economy” in which the average person is no longer allowed to own private property of any kind and is completely dependent on the system for their basic necessities.

    Of course, such a complex system of “solutions” (dominance) over every individual would need to be managed in a highly centralized way. Meaning, global governance by the elitist establishment would be the end result. Naturally….the globalists would reluctantly take the reins of power for “the greater good”.

    This is the bigger picture, the underlying threat at the core of the lockdowns and Covid laws. That said, there are also numerous arguments based on logic and evidence as to why there is no reason for people to submit to such restrictions. Let’s outline them in a simple list:

    The Coronavirus Kills Less Than 1% Of The People It Infects

    Medical studies in the US indicate that the coronavirus deaths rate for citizens NOT living in nursing homes has been holding well below 1% on average. The largest percentage of deaths by far in the US has been in nursing homes among elderly people with preexisting conditions. People in long term care facilities make up 8% of Covid infection cases but they are 45% of all covid deaths.

    Pneumonia alone kills around 50,000 Americans each year according to the CDC, and that’s with vaccinations, yet, we are supposed to panic and hand over all our freedoms in the name of stopping a disease which affects a tiny percentage of the population? This is why the media and governments have decided to hyperfocus on infection numbers rather than deaths. The death numbers do not warrant the amount of panic the establishment is trying to foment.

    Lockdowns Destroy The Economy

    It’s basic math and finance; the small business sector of the US economy is dying. Small businesses make up around 50% of US employment. The Covid bailout money, handled by international banks like JP Morgan, did not get to the vast majority of small businesses that were supposed to receive it. Those businesses that did get bailouts are still on the verge of closure or bankruptcy. Any further lockdowns will be the final nail in the coffin for the US economy, except for major corporations which are enjoying the lion’s share of stimulus cash.

    How many lives will be damaged or lost due to poverty and economic collapse if the current trend continues? I suspect far more than any lives lost because of Covid.

    Why is no one in the mainstream talking about the most practical solution to the pandemic? The small percentage of people who are most at risk can STAY HOME and take precautions as necessary, while the rest of us get on with our lives. Why are we being ordered to do the exact opposite just to make less than 1% of the population feel safer? How is this logical, reasonable or scientific? The only answer that makes sense is that the lockdown response is about control, not saving lives.

    State Governors Have No Authority To Take Away Your Civil Liberties, And Neither Does The President

    Restrictions based on executive orders have no legal authority under the Constitution. They are color of law, not true law. Laws are debated and passed by state legislatures, not by state governors. Executive orders only apply to state employees and have no bearing on the citizenry.

    Leftists and statists argue that during a national crisis the governor has emergency powers and states can do whatever they want. This is false. Under the constitution and the Bill of Rights, state governors do not get to proclaim a national emergency based on their personal opinion and then declare themselves dictators in response. Any “laws” exerted because of such a process are therefor null and void; they are meaningless.

    If the states have the ability to do whatever they want without oversight, then they would be able to bring back Jim Crow laws (among other things). Do leftists support that idea as well? If the federal government and the president have the power to violate the Bill of Rights during a national emergency, then Donald Trump has the authority to bring in martial law across the country because of leftist riots. Do leftists agree with that outcome?

    It is interesting to me that the political left in particular is so keen on defending the idea of states and governors having the power to unilaterally enforce pandemic restrictions without oversight or checks and balances. Yet, they have been aggressively opposed to state powers in the past when they had a Democratic president like Obama in office. The left has also been staunchly opposed to executive orders applied by Donald Trump, but they applaud the idea of executive orders on lockdowns being instituted by Biden.

    So, leftists support unilateral state power only when it works in favor of their agenda, and they support unilateral federal and presidential power only when it works in favor of their agenda. What a surprise…

    The bottom line is this: State government powers do not supersede the Bill of Rights. Federal government powers do not supersede the Bill of Rights. NO ONE has the legal power to take away your inherent liberties. Those that claim otherwise have something to gain from your enslavement.

    Mask Laws Are Unscientific

    The majority of masks being used by the public today are cloth masks. Not even the CDC recommends the use of cloth masks for their own employees or medical workers. They only recommend N95 masks. They also admit that cloth masks are much less effective at preventing contact with the virus. Yet, the CDC supports the enforcement of cloth masks for the public.

    On top of that, some states and countries with the most stringent mask laws continue to see huge spikes in coronavirus infections. For example, New York has been one of the most tyrannical enforcers of mask laws and lockdowns in the US, but in November the state has witnessed extensive infection increases. California, Michigan and Illinois have also seen dramatic infection spikes this month despite hard enforcement of masks. So, where is the science?

    It would appear that masks are a placebo; if they actually worked, then the states with the most aggressive enforcement should be seeing a dramatic downturn in cases, not exponential increases.

    Furthermore, why are many states and countries trying to force citizens to wear masks outside in open air and sunlight when viruses cannot survive in such conditions? UV light from the sun is nature’s sterilizer, but no one in the mainstream or in government acknowledges this scientific fact. Again, this shows that mask laws are about control, not about science or saving lives.

    Covid Vaccination Is Unnecessary And Potentially Dangerous

    Why should people get vaccinated for a virus that over 99% of them will easily survive anyway? Why not simply attain “herd immunity” through natural infection spread and antibodies? The mainstream will continue to ignore these questions because they are inconvenient to the wider agenda.

    Also, why should anyone trust a vaccine that was rushed out in less than a year’s time? China and the rest of the world spent over a decade trying to develop a vaccine for SARS unsuccessfully, but we are supposed to believe that they created a vaccine for SARS related Covid 19 within months?

    The last time the government rushed out a vaccine for a viral epidemic was the 1976 swine flu scare, and that ended with numerous permanently damaged or dead individuals due to faulty vaccines.

    As I noted in my article ‘Why The Public Should Rebel Against Forced Vaccinations’, published in May, there are numerous examples of vaccine tests and implementation going very wrong, from Bill Gates and the World Health Organization giving people polio in various countries through vaccines, to Novartis and their deadly testing of a Bird Flu vaccine on homeless people in Poland, to GlaxoSmithCline and the deaths of children due to their pneumonia vaccine.

    Again, it’s simply not worth the risk over a virus that over 99% of people will survive. The idea of such risk being forced on the public is completely unacceptable, but many government officials have supported the idea over the past six months. It is important for the public to make it clear now that they will NOT be allowing state or federal governments to make vaccination mandatory.

    Rebellion Is Needed To Put A Stop To The Fear Machine

    In closing, there are endless reasons why we must end the pandemic lockdown agenda once and for all. Most importantly, the lockdowns, mask orders and vaccine plans are a stepping stone to something much worse – Medical tyranny and centralization on an unprecedented scale. I will not personally follow such rules because they are not scientifically or morally sound. They are nonsense designed to frighten the public into complacency and consent.

    A rebellion against such measures would be very easy to win. All we have to do is refuse to follow their mandates. What are they going to do? Lock up millions of people? Shoot us? That would sort of defeat the supposed purpose of the very measures they demand we follow. And, if it comes to violence, so be it. I have no problem fighting to defend my freedoms and the freedoms of future generations. Perhaps it is time for conservatives and moderates that stand against the lockdowns to organize for this possible future.

    *  *  *

    If you would like to support the work that Alt-Market does while also receiving content on advanced tactics for defeating the globalist agenda, subscribe to our exclusive newsletter The Wild Bunch Dispatch.  Learn more about it HERE.

  • New Details Emerge About China's Super Secret "JH-XX" Stealth Bomber 
    New Details Emerge About China’s Super Secret “JH-XX” Stealth Bomber 

    Tyler Durden

    Wed, 11/18/2020 – 23:30

    Experts from The National Interest shed new light on developments surrounding China’s new fifth-generation warplanes.

    The focus will be on the People’s Liberation Army Air Force’s (PLAAF) new heavy subsonic stealth bomber, with the reported capacity to strike US military assets in Hawaii.

    Called the “JH-XX,” the stealth bomber remains somewhat of a mystery, though The National Interest points out through a recent edition of the Chinese magazine “Aerospace Knowledge,” a possible rendering of the plane was displayed.  

    “The JH-XX may feature an active electronically scanned array (AESA) radar, but little is known of its avionics package beyond that. The fighter will reportedly have a combat radius of roughly 3,000 kilometers and be capable of supersonic flight.

    “JH-XX appears to fill a regional role—the medium-range bomber is poised to help Beijing deter competitors and contest airspace in the East and South China seas and the Yellow and Japan seas to China’s northeast. 

    “To this end, the JH-XX will likely carry the PLAAF’s latest side-mounted, beyond visual range air-to-air missiles,” The National Interest wrote. 

    Frontpage of Aerospace Knowledge 

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    Previously reported, the Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA) noted in an annual report on Chinese military power about the developments of Chinese stealth bombers.

    “The PLAAF is developing new medium- and long-range stealth bombers to strike regional and global targets. Stealth technology continues to play a key role in the development of these new bombers, which probably will reach initial operational capability no sooner than 2025.”

    The DIA revealed China is working on the Xian H-20, a subsonic stealth bomber design that looks similar to the B-1 Lancer, along with the JH-XX.

    It remains unclear if the JH-XX design concept ever made it into the development phase, let alone pre-production.

    New developments about the JH-XX comes as its first stealth fighter jet, J-20, entered mass production this past summer. It also comes as the US and its allies surround China with stealth fighters, called “F-35 friends circle.” 

    It should be clear by now that stealth fighters and bombers, armed with hypersonic missiles and even laser cannons, will dominate modern battlefields if and when the next major conflict breaks out. 

  • 'EcoHealth Alliance' Orchestrated Key Scientists' Statement On "Natural Origin" Of SARS-CoV-2
    ‘EcoHealth Alliance’ Orchestrated Key Scientists’ Statement On “Natural Origin” Of SARS-CoV-2

    Tyler Durden

    Wed, 11/18/2020 – 23:10

    Authored by Sainath Suryanarayanan via USRTK.org,

    Emails obtained by U.S. Right to Know show that a statement in The Lancet authored by 27 prominent public health scientists condemning “conspiracy theories suggesting that COVID-19 does not have a natural origin” was organized by employees of EcoHealth Alliance, a non-profit group that has received millions of dollars of U.S. taxpayer funding to genetically manipulate coronaviruses with scientists at the Wuhan Institute of Virology.

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    The emails obtained via public records requests show that EcoHealth Alliance President Peter Daszak drafted the Lancet statement, and that he intended it to “not be identifiable as coming from any one organization or person” but rather to be seen as “simply a letter from leading scientists”.

    Daszak wrote that he wanted “to avoid the appearance of a political statement”.

    The scientists’ letter appeared in The Lancet on February 18, just one week after the World Health Organization announced that the disease caused by the novel coronavirus would be named COVID-19.

    The 27 authors “strongly condemn[ed] conspiracy theories suggesting that COVID-19 does not have a natural origin,” and reported that scientists from multiple countries “overwhelmingly conclude that this coronavirus originated in wildlife.” The letter included no scientific references to refute a lab-origin theory of the virus.

    One scientist, Linda Saif, asked via email whether it would be useful “to add just one or 2 statements in support of why nCOV is not a lab generated virus and is naturally occuring? Seems critical to scientifically refute such claims!”

    Daszak responded, “I think we should probably stick to a broad statement.”

    Growing calls to investigate the Wuhan Institute of Virology as a potential source of SARS-CoV-2 have led to increased scrutiny of EcoHealth Alliance.

    The emails show how members of EcoHealth Alliance played an early role in framing questions about possible lab origin of SARS-CoV-2 as “crackpot theories that need to be addressed,” as Daszak told The Guardian.

    Although the phrase “EcoHealth Alliance” appeared only once in The Lancet statement, in association with co-author Daszak, several other co-authors also have direct ties to the group that were not disclosed as conflicts of interest. Rita Colwell and James Hughes are members of the Board of Directors of EcoHealth Alliance, William Karesh is the group’s Executive Vice President for Health and Policy, and Hume Field is Science and Policy Advisor.

    The statement’s authors also claimed that the “rapid, open, and transparent sharing of data on this outbreak is now being threatened by rumours and misinformation around its origins.” Today, however, little is known about the origins of SARS-CoV-2, and investigations into its origins by the World Health Organization and The Lancet COVID-19 commission have been shrouded in secrecy and mired by conflicts of interests.

    Peter Daszak, Rita Colwell, and The Lancet Editor Richard Horton did not provide comments in response to our requests for this story.

    *  *  *

    A link to the entire batch of EcoHealth Alliance emails can be found here: EcoHealth Alliance emails: University of Maryland (466 pages)

    U.S. Right to Know is posting documents obtained through public freedom of information (FOI) requests for our Biohazards investigation in our post: FOI documents on origins of SARS-CoV-2, hazards of gain-of-function research and biosafety labs.

  • "Gen Y Is Out, Gen Z Is In": Why One Bank Thinks Gen Z "Are The New Global Influencers"
    “Gen Y Is Out, Gen Z Is In”: Why One Bank Thinks Gen Z “Are The New Global Influencers”

    Tyler Durden

    Wed, 11/18/2020 – 22:50

    It seems like only yesterday that Wall Street was writing massive research reports how the Millennials were going to “make a difference” in the world as a result of their “pent up” purchasing power which was just waiting to be unleashed. Unfortunately, in retrospect the Millennials were a huge disappointment, having made absolutely no “difference” in the world (the Fed decided to make if it for them) despite having created millions of ingeniously airbrushed Instragram posts. And so, with Wall Street desperate to pin its hopes on someone who will prove to be the spending dynamo that pushes the US economy out of the doldrums – which is Millennials were supposed to be – the street has shifted it attention to those next in line, namely…

    Gen Z (i.e., 20-year-olds).

    In one of its massive “thematic investing” primers which doubles as a paperweight thanks to its hundred + pages of recycled content (copy a chart, replace Millennials with Gen Z, paste) Bank of America writes that “Here come the Zillennials! Gen Y is out, Gen Z is in” (which is oddly reminiscent of a similar primer the bank wrote a few years back when it said virtually the same things about Millennials).

    But we digress: in an intro that will hardly endear Bank of America to the millions of 20-year-olds who are supposed to change the world, now that Gen Y has been cast into the trash bucket of demographics, the bank writes that “despite having an attention span shorter than a goldfish’s (8 seconds) Gen Z is the most disruptive generation ever and sees themselves as ‘citizens of the world’.

    It only gets funnier better: The bank next claims that the generation that was born online and is now entering the workforce “is compelling other generations to adapt to them, not vice versa.” We doubt any Gen Z employers actually agree with that laughable assessment in a labor market where they can hire far more experienced unemployed substitutes from Gen X, and even Boomers (while getting some actual work ethic in the bargain).

    To make its recycled argument that Millennials Gen-Z will change the world, BofA argues that this generation “is set to grow incomes 5x to $33tn by 2030 and will surpass Millennials by 2031.” Right… maybe if the Fed deposits trillions into their digital dollar accounts.

    Sarcasm aside, and while there is much, much more in the full note, a quick recap of the points made by BofA analyst Haim Israel is that the “clicktivist” generation is “socially involved” that spend much of their time online, with 40% preferring to hang out with friends virtually rather than in person.

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    He adds that “having lived through the ’08 Financial Crisis and seeing its impact on their families, they are financially conservative and cautious about credit cards and taking on debt. Sectors that stand to benefit from Gen Z include eCommerce, payments, luxury, media and ESG while those structurally challenged include alcohol, meat, cars, shopping malls and old media.”

    Below we present some of the more notable excerpts from the massive “generational” report:

    Here come the Zillennials! Gen Y is out, Gen Z is in

    They’ve never known a life without Google, 40% prefer hanging out with friends virtually than in real life, they will spend six years of their life on social media and they won’t use credit cards. They’re the ‘clicktivists’: flourishing in a decade of social rights movements, with 4 in 10 in our proprietary BofA seeing themselves as ‘citizens of the world’. The Gen Z revolution is starting, as the first generation born into an online world is now entering the workforce and compelling other generations to adapt to them, not vice versa. Thus, about to become most disruptive to economies, markets and social systems.

    $33tn income by 2030, to pass Millennials by 2031

    Gen Z’s economic power is the fastest-growing across all cohorts. This generation’s income will increase c.5x by 2030 to $33tn as they enter the workplace today, reaching 27% of global income and surpassing Millennials the year after. The growing consumer power of Gen Z will be even more powerful taking into account the ‘Great Wealth Transfer’ down the generations. The Baby Boomer and Silent generation US households alone are sitting on $78tn of wealth today.

    9 in 10 live in EM, while DM suffers from “peak youth”

    Gen Z could be EM’s secret weapon. APAC income already accounts for over a third of Gen Z’s income and will exceed North American and European combined income by 2035. ‘Peak youth’ milestones are being reached across the developed markets – Europe is the first continent to have more over-65s than under-15s, a club North America will join in 2022. In contrast, India stands out as the Gen Z country, accounting for 20% of the global generation, with improved youth literacy rates, urbanisation, and rapid expansion of technological infrastructure. Mexico, the Philippines and Thailand are just a few of the EM countries that we think have what it takes to capitalize on the Gen Z revolution.

    Beneficiaries: eCommerce, payments, luxury, media, ESG

    Gen Z is the online generation: nearly half are online ‘almost constantly’ and a quarter of them will spend 10+ hours a day on their phone. In our survey, over a quarter of Gen Z’s top payment choice was the phone, while credit cards weren’t even in their top 3. This generation is the least likely to pick experiences over goods, and values sustainable luxury – choosing quality over price as their top purchase factor.

    “Peak” generation: alcohol, meat, cars, travel headwinds

    Only half of US teens can drive, while our survey finds that less than half of Gen Z drink alcohol, and more than half have some kind of meat restriction. A third of them would trust a robot to make their financial decisions. Gen Z’s activist focus filters into their interactions with business, too – 80% factor ESG investing into their financial decisions, and they have also driven consumer-facing sustainability campaigns, such as single-use plastics. Harmful consumer sectors, such as fast fashion, may be the next focus.

    When were you born?

    • Silent Generation (born 1928-1945, current age 92-75)
    • Baby Boomers (born 1946-1964, current age 74-56)
    • Generation X (born 1965-80, current age 55-40)
    • Generation Y or Millennials (born 1981-1995, current age 39-25)
    • Generation Z or Centennials (born 1996-2016, current age 4-24)
    • Generation Alpha (born 2017-present, current age 3)

    Generations at a glance

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    10 things you need to know about Gen Z in 10 charts

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    Millennials are old news: Gen Z searches are skyrocketing

    Interest in Gen Z continues to grow, surpassing Millennials, as the new generation of consumers, workers, entrepreneurs and activists start to make their mark. We argue that businesses and investors need to start adjusting their strategies to reflect the growing political, social, and economic influence of this generation.

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    The largest generation: 2.5bn globally

    Gen Z, born between 1996 and 2016, just entering the workforce, is the largest at 2.5bn individuals, accounting for 32% of the global population (source: Euromonitor, UN).

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    Five largest Gen Z countries account for 44% of Gen Z population

    Of the 2.5bn Gen Z worldwide, 89% live in emerging and developing markets vs 72% in 1950. India, China, Nigeria, Indonesia, and the US are the five largest, accounting for 44% of the total Gen Z population. Specifically, India and China make up 19.8% and 13.7% of the global Gen Z population, respectively, while all other countries individually account for less than 4% each (source: UN, Euromonitor).

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    Gen Z 101: The global influencers: a population of 2.5bn and 140% growth in economic power over 5Y

    Gen Z, born between 1996 and 2016, is the largest population at 2.5bn accounting for a third of the global total. Already, Gen Z has $7tn of income. In addition, this influential generation has the fastest-growing income, set to increase 140% in the next five years to $17tn in 2025 and $33tn by 2030. Gen Z is set to overtake Millennials’ total income by the early 2030s. The largest Gen Z markets by income are the US and China at $1.2tn and $1.1tn, respectively, followed by India, Japan, Germany, the UK and France. The influence of this generation is set to grow further as the great wealth transfer from Baby Boomers and Silent generation, who own $78tn in the US alone, is about to begin.

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    Gen Z is not Millennials 2.0: fiscally conservative, socially activist, materialistic

    In contrast to Millennials, Gen Z have grown up in the shadow of the Great Financial Crisis in 2008-09 and during a decade of social activism. Social issues form part of Gen Z’s identity. They are digital dependents rather than Millennial digital pioneers. Also, the generation is more fiscally conservative than Millennials. However, some demographic factors remain similar for the two generations; both are delaying marriage, children, and homeownership, as well as postponing other traditional consumer purchases.

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    What’s Trending

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    Gen Z are not Millennials 2.0

    Gen Z are different from Millennials. They don’t know a life without Google. They grew up in the aftermath of the financial crisis and flourished as social rights for LGBTQ+ and movements such as #metoo came to the fore. Also, they have experienced the brunt of the effects of the pandemic on their prospects as they enter the workforce. These experiences have shaped Gen Z to be a very different generation from Millennials – key activists on climate change, fiscally cautious, valuing luxury/quality over quantity, and better skilled for an automated world. We think financial markets often underestimate these differences, assuming Gen Z to be the same as their predecessors, missing the distinctions that help understand the changing new consumer.

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    The political agenda: Gen Z are social champions

    Activism forms part of Gen Z’s identity. Over 10% of Gen Z and 12% of under 18s surveyed claimed that activism was their priority over all other options, such as family, love, career, etc. This compares with 8% of Millennials and 4% of Baby Boomers. This activism will influence Gen Z’s decisions across sectors, from consumption of goods to education, work choices and financial investments.

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    Gen Z is most concerned about climate change and social unrest

    Gen Z’s passion for social causes directly translates into their major concerns. All generations are concerned about the economy and recession. However, Gen Z are the most concerned when it comes to social unrest and climate change. Even among Millennial and Gen Z Republicans, there is a much greater openness to clean energy and progressive climate change policy. 79% of Millennials and Gen Z that are Republican or Republican leaning think the US should be prioritising alternative energy sources compared with 55% of Baby Boomer Republicans and 91% of Democrats. 49% of young Republicans believe the government is doing too little to reduce the effects of climate change, double the share of Baby Boomer Republicans (source: Pew Research 2020).

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    BofA Generation Survey results

    The BofA Thematic Demographics Survey polled over 14,500 consumers aged 16 and over across the US, UK, France, Germany, Japan, South Korea, China, India, Mexico, and Brazil. The survey was undertaken in late August 2020 and was an internet-based survey. A few key results:

    • Gen Z would rather use cash than pay by credit card
    • 45% of Millennials, the ‘cord cutter’ generation, still watch broadcast TV. In contrast, only a third of 18-24 year olds and just a quarter of under 18s do
    • Teetotal generation: Over half of Gen Z does not drink alcohol at all, vs a third of Millennials
    • 40% of 16-17 year olds prefer hanging out with friends virtually than in person
    • c.1 in 3 Gen Z and Millennials would trust a robot to make their financial decisions
    • More than four out of five Gen Zers factor ESG into their investing
    • Four in 10 Gen Zers see themselves as ‘citizens of the world’ vs just two in 10 Baby Boomers
    • “Generation rent”, Gen Z, is the only generation that does not want to move to the suburbs or countryside
    • eSports is watched more often by Gen Z than traditional sports
    • Only 14% of Gen Z expect their banks to have physical branches versus 40% of Baby Boomers

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    Did you know?

    • $10tn of lifecycle earnings could be lost by today’s students due to Covid lockdowns.
    • 9 out of 10 of Gen Z thinks it’s appropriate to use their phone in the bathroom, and 36% think it’s appropriate to use it in a place of worship
    • Gen Z & Millennials have a much weaker handshakes than other generations
    • Gen Z will spend nearly 6 years of their life on social media… that’s more time spent than eating, studying & socializing combined4
    • Young surgeons are losing the dexterity to stitch up patients because they’re spending too much time swiping smartphone screens5
    • Gen Z have a shorter attention span than goldfish, at 8 seconds
    • Millennials are 5x more willing to share their clothes and 2x share their toothbrush than smartphone with their friends
    • 55% of surgeons recently reported having patients mention social media as their primary reason for plastic surgery – up from 42% in 2015
    • Gen Z must emit 8x less carbon than Baby Boomers to stay within 1.5C of warming
    • The majority of US women no longer have children in their 20s10
    • Over half of teenagers admit to sitting in silence on their phones, while hanging out with friends for long stretches of time
    • Clicktivists: 72% of Gen Z believe they can be part of a social movement even if they participate only through social media
    • Gen Z is the first cohort where the majority has some kind of meat restriction in their diet
    • 58% of Gen Z said they can’t be without internet access for more than four hours before becoming uncomfortable
    • 70% of Millennials would consider a lab-grown diamond, when getting married, which costs around a third less than a mined one
    • Americans placed a cannabis order every 8 seconds in 2018…
    • …But it’s a Baby Boomers industry, as they spend on average 53% more than Gen Z on marijuana in the US

    How will Gen Z impact industry?

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    For much more, contact your local BofA sales coverage for the full report.

  • Deutsche: "There Is Increasing Demand To Use Bitcoin Where Gold Was Used To Hedge Dollar Risk And Inflation"
    Deutsche: “There Is Increasing Demand To Use Bitcoin Where Gold Was Used To Hedge Dollar Risk And Inflation”

    Tyler Durden

    Wed, 11/18/2020 – 22:30

    From Deutsche Bank’s Jim Reid

    A divergent world post vaccine news

    There has been some consolidation in the S&P 500 after last week’s vaccine euphoria. The index is ‘only’ 1% above where we closed last Wednesday. However, remember this index has many mega-cap growth stocks that have benefited from the pandemic so it won’t be the best index to track when looking at what the vaccine hope is doing to markets.

    Looking at a broader sweep of selected global assets since the start of last week, just before the initial Pfizer/BioNTech vaccine news, it’s clear there has been a big divergence and bias towards cyclically-exposed assets. The Energy complex has soared along with financials (especially in Europe). European equities have notably out-performed the US.

    One of the worst performers has been tech with the US NYFANG index -3.8% since the vaccine news. This index is up +77.5% YTD in total return terms, so any normalisation could weigh on the overall US indices given their importance. One of the oddities has been the dramatic divergence between Gold (-3.6%) and Silver (-4.4%) on the one hand and Bitcoin (+13.4%) on the other. Bitcoin is up another +3% overnight and seems to be creating momentum of its own. It’s up over 70% over the last six weeks as more and more investors are starting to see it emerge as a credible asset to invest in.

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    There also seems to be an increasing demand to use Bitcoin where Gold used to be used to hedge Dollar risk, inflation and other things.

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  • "Surreal Debt Tsunami": IIF Shocked To Forecast Global Debt Hitting $360 Trillion In Ten Years
    “Surreal Debt Tsunami”: IIF Shocked To Forecast Global Debt Hitting $360 Trillion In Ten Years

    Tyler Durden

    Wed, 11/18/2020 – 22:10

    The latest quarterly report from the IIF which among other things, has the unpleasant task of calculating total global debt (which consists of Household, Non-financial corporates, General government and Financial debt), was published today and it’s a whopper because it shows, in no uncertain terms, a world that is careening toward either the spectacular deflationary supernoava of a debt collapse, or a hyperinflationary explosion that will need to sweep away hundreds of trillions in debt in the next few years.

    Here are the findings:

    • Global debt has surged by over $15 trillion since 2019, hitting a new record of over $272 trillion in Q3 2020.
    • As the fiscal response to the pandemic continues, the IIF expects global debt to hit $277 trillion (365% of GDP) by end-2020
    • Debt outside the financial sector on track to hit $210 trillion (274% of GDP) this year—up from $194 trillion (240%) in 2019
    • Emerging market debt (ex-financials) is fast approaching 210% of GDP—up from 185% in 2019 and 140% a decade ago
    • Sharply declining revenues have made debt service much more onerous for EM governments—despite low borrowing costs
    • Some $7 trillion of emerging market bonds and syndicated loans come due through end-2021, 15% of that in U.S. dollars

    And things get really batshit insane after that, but more on that in a moment.

    First, here the details:

    According to IIF calculations, global debt is on track to exceed $277 trillion in 2020: Spurred by a sharp rise in government and corporate borrowing as the COVID-19 pandemic wears on, the global debt load increased by $15 trillion in the first three quarters of 2020 and now stands above $272 trillion. Much if not all of that increase was monetized by central banks who have now activated the disaster contingency plan known as helicopter money. And with little sign of a slowdown in debt issuance, the IIF estimate that global debt will smash through records to hit $277 trillion by the end of the year.

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    Debt-to-GDP ratios has gone parabolic: Following a record surge in global debt-to-GDP (from 320% to around 362% in H1 2020), the IIF is proud to report that the rise in Q3 2020 was “more modest”, at less than 2 percentage points—helped by the strong global recovery. And while the IIF expects that the global debt-to-GDP ratio will reach some 365% of GDP in 2020, should lockdowns accelerated in the coming weeks, we expect a double-dip depression which may push total debt/GDP above 400% in the next two quarters.

    A more granular look reveals that debt in mature markets surpassed a record 432% of GDP in Q3 2020, up by over 50 percentage points from 2019. The U.S. accounted for nearly half of the rise, with total debt on track to hit $80 trillion in 2020—up from $71 trillion in 2019. Most of the rise was in the general government (up $3.7tn) and non-financial corporate sectors (up $1.7tn). In the Euro Area, a $1.5 trillion rise in government debt pushed total debt over $53 trillion in Q3 2020 (though this is still below the all-time high of $55 trillion in Q2 2014). Debt in other mature markets rose by over $3.7 trillion to $65 trillion in the first three quarters of 2020.

    The silver lining, inasmuch as one exists, is that Emerging market debt “only” soared to 250% of GDP: EM debt rose from 222% of GDP in Q4 2019 to over 248% of GDP in Q3 2020. The dollar amount of EM debt now surpasses $76 trillion, with the rise was driven by a surge in non-financial corporate debt in China. Excluding China, the USD value of EM debt declined from $31 trillion in Q4 2019 to $29.3 trillion in Q3 2020, largely reflecting losses in EM currencies against the USD. Of course, excluding China is impossible in a world where China will soon be the dominant superpower.

    At the same time, Debt outside the financial sector hit $206 trillion in Q3 2020, up from $194 trillion in 2019. Governments accounted for 60% of the $12 trillion buildup in the world’s debt pile (ex-financials). Global non-financial corporate debt rose by over $4.3 trillion to a fresh high of near $80 trillion, while household debt rose by $500 billion, to near $50 trillion.

    The catastrophic breakdown is shown in the table below:

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    An in-depth look at the “usual suspects” reveals no surprises: the US, Canada and Japan have seen the biggest increases in non-financial sector debt this year, with the rise in debt-to-GDP ratios varying from 45 percentage points in the U.S. to over 75 percentage points in Canada. Across mature markets, government debt has again been the main driver of the rise, increasing the most in Canada, Japan, the U.S., the UK and Spain. Of note, Ireland is the only country in the IIF sample to see a decline in the total debt ratio, as declines in household and non-financial corporate debt offset the rise in government debt. One wonders why they even bother: at this point it’s far too late to be “fiscally prudent” so may as well issue as much debt as the market will take and enjoy the next few years before it all falls apart.

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    Within EMs, China, Malaysia, Turkey and Lebanon have seen the biggest increases in non-financial sector debt ratios since 2019.

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    While sharp economic contractions drove surging debt ratios in many cases (notably in Lebanon), the USD value of debt also rose sharply in China, Egypt, Saudi Arabia, the Philippines, and Turkey over the first three quarters of 2020.

    Most importantly, the rise in non-financial corporate debt in China—from from 150% of GDP in Q3 2019 to over 165% in Q3 2020–has been striking. IIF estimates that China’s total debt-to-GDP topped 335% of GDP—vs 200% of GDP in 2011. This is a staggering amount, and is more than double official Chinese metrics.

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    Here the IIF points out a massive problem: whereas in the past, emerging markets served as a global debt repository thanks to their low leverage, tising debt service burdens have now become a key issue for emerging markets: Largely reflecting the massive monetary policy response to the pandemic, corporate borrowers have been able to lock in lower funding costs at longer-than-average maturities. With short-term debt securities accounting for over 45% of total issuance in mature markets…

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    …  lower policy rates have also slashed borrowing costs for governments—a big benefit given widespread COVID-related revenue losses. In emerging markets, however, these revenue losses have made debt service burden much more onerous—despite the benefit from lower borrowing costs. Indeed, unlike DMs where interest expense miraculously declines the more deb there is, in EMs that’s not the case, and we are approaching the Minsky Moment collapse very, very fast.

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    Finally, the IIF estimates that some $7 trillion of EM debt will come due through end-2021, with USD-denominated debt representing 15% of the total.

    * * *

    Putting it all together, reveals nothing short of an surreal, apocalyptic hellscape where the world either collapses into a debt singularity as global debt to GDP slowly but surely creeps toward 1,000%… or explodes in a hyperinflationary supernova as central banks deposit trillions in digital Fedbux to every citizen instructing them to buy anything and everything they can find, in a last ditch effort to hyperinflate away the debt.

    But don’t take our word for it: as the IIF itself states, “the pace of global debt accumulation has been unprecedented since 2016, increasing by over $52 trillion. While some $15 trillion of this surge has been recorded in 2020 amid the COVID-19 pandemic, the debt build-up over the past four years has far outstripped the $6 trillion rise over the previous four years and over earlier comparable periods.”

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    As a result, even the IIF admits that “there is significant uncertainty about how the global economy can deleverage in the future without significant adverse implications for economic activity.”

    One alternative – the one which is coming thanks to the digital dollars (and euros, and yen, and yuan) which the Fed and its peers will wire to every citizen – is that the next decade could bring a reflationary fiscal response, in sharp contrast to the austerity bias in the 2010s, according to the IIF. Of course, it would also unleash a monetary tsunami that will in just a few years do away with fiat as we know it… but that’s precisely why we have been pounding the table that the biggest story of 2020 is not covid, not the election, but the “all hands on deck” preparation by central banks to launch digital currencies. We have about 2-3 years before digital currencies are fully adopted.

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    Whether it is a deflationary neutron bomb, or a hyperinflationary supernove, the IIF’s conclusion is quite clear: “if the global debt pile continues to grow at the average pace of the last 15 years, our back-of-the-envelope estimates suggest that global debt could exceed $360 trillion by 2030—over $85 trillion higher than current levels.”

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    That, whether it’s in an inflationary or deflationary context, is best known by two very familiar words: “game over.”

  • Target Steals More Market Share As Same-Day Channels Grow 217% In Q3
    Target Steals More Market Share As Same-Day Channels Grow 217% In Q3

    Tyler Durden

    Wed, 11/18/2020 – 21:50

    By Ben Unglesbee of RetailDive

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    Target isn’t just growing; it’s eating other retailers’ lunch. On a call with analysts, CEO Brian Cornell said his company made “meaningful share gains across every one of our core categories as guests increasingly rely on Target to reliably and safely serve their wants and needs.”

    Moreover, while the retailer grew, and operated in a volatile pandemic environment, Target added to its bottom line. Its operating income nearly doubled year over year, coming to $1.9 billion in Q3, and net earnings grew by 41.9%. 

    In emailed comments, Moody’s retail analyst Charlie O’Shea said that “[p]ast and continuing strategic investments are paying off in a big way, which combined with Target’s superior execution resulted in significantly improved operating margin.” He added that, “Target has built up sufficient margin cushion such that it can absorb the meaningful levels of promotions which will be necessary to compete effectively with the likes of Walmart and Amazon.”

    Indeed, Target posted stronger growth in Q3 than its larger peer, Walmart, which posted strong but slowing sales gains for the quarter. Notably, while Walmart relied on growing ticket values to make up for traffic declines — a beneficial byproduct for mass merchants as consumers consolidate trips in the pandemic era — Target saw both ticket value and traffic growth during the same period.

    Telsey Advisory Group analysts led by Joseph Feldman attributed Target’s sales and share growth to “the success of its omni-channel strategies, loyal customer base, and superior execution.”

    “Longer term, we believe Target is well positioned to continue to gain market share, supported by ongoing strategies— price investments, private brands, remodels, small format stores (opened 29 stores in 2020 YTD), fulfillment/supply chain enhancements, loyalty programs, and Target+ marketplace — and retail consolidation,” the analysts said in an emailed note. 

    Target’s growth in the quarter, however, did slow compared to the retailer’s blowout Q2, noted GlobalData Retail Managing Director Neil Saunders. He pointed to the end of federal economic stimulus for households; the back-to-school and Halloween seasons, which Saunders described as “muted affairs” amid the pandemic; and to the full reopening of retail stores across the country. 

    Saunders noted the importance of Target’s rising traffic. “This is a testament to the strength of Target’s offer and, in the case of physical destinations, the pleasantness of its stores,” he said, adding that his firm’s data shows 34% of Americans said they visited Target during the pandemic to browse and to get out of the house, the highest percentage in retail.

    Cornell noted that Target’s customers are concerned about store safety with COVID-19 continuing its spread. To that end, the retailer has undertaken numerous safety measures, and recently added digital features to encourage contactless shopping and discourage crowds and lines. “We are committed to being the safest place to shop,” he said.

    Going into the holiday season, executives said on the call that Target has expanded its gifting assortment and unveiled its largest-ever list of hot toys, along with merchandising partnerships such as that with toy brand FAO Schwarz. Cornell said that customers have “reacted very positively” to Target’s efforts to pull Black Friday discounts earlier into the season as well as to closing for Thanksgiving. 

    Saunders said that “Target will be one of the winners” of the the holiday retail blitz. “All our surveys show it is one of the top gifting destinations and is also performing well for holiday home décor,” he said. “In essence, all the fundamentals are aligned for Target to do well.”

  • Far Deadlier Strain Of Coronavirus Discovered In South Australia
    Far Deadlier Strain Of Coronavirus Discovered In South Australia

    Tyler Durden

    Wed, 11/18/2020 – 21:30

    As researchers struggle to understand what makes infection with COVID-19 so mild in some cases, and so deadly in others, we have kept a close eye out for any new links between symptoms different strains of the virus. And on Wednesday we noticed new comments from South Australia’s top health official who warned that a particularly deadly strain of SARS-CoV-2 is circulating in the state.

    Chief Health Officer Professor Nicola Spurrier explained that the reason for the recently imposed six-day lockdown is the fact that “this particular strain has had certain characteristics” she said.

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    The State of South Australia, which became home to this dramatic scene yesterday, is also bracing for the risk that this new strain could spread more quickly, in addition to being more deadly. Professor Spurrier said a typical generation, or stage, of the virus was only about three days.

    “We also know, because of that characteristic, that what we call a generation, is only about three days and a generation is when one case is passing it on to the next level, and then that (next) level, so if they pass it on to two people, they will pass it on to another lot of people, and that is your third generation,” she said.

    Already, the virus has progressed to the fifth generation, she said.

    “At the moment in SA we have done contact tracing to the fourth generation but the fifth generation is out there in our community and at the moment we are contact tracing to get on to that generation and that is the Woodville pizza bar.”

    Authorities have traced the local outbreak to a pizza shop in Parafield. The cluster began with a worker at Peppers Warmouth, which is being used as a quarantine hotel, was infected with the virus.

    By tracing the spread of certain strains of the virus, researchers in the US have hypothesized that the virus was spread to New York from Europe, before moving to the rest of the country east of the Mississippi, while other strains colonized China and the west.

    Though SA’s infection rate remains muted, officials have reported two new cases today, taking the total to 22, while another 12 people are still under investigation.

    But as residents rush to get tested, we can’t help but wonder if public health officials might be playing up the strain angle to coax people into obeying the state’s six day lockdown.

  • Trump's "Nuclear Dollar" Option Is Yet To Be Deployed Against China
    Trump’s “Nuclear Dollar” Option Is Yet To Be Deployed Against China

    Tyler Durden

    Wed, 11/18/2020 – 21:10

    By Ye Xie, Bloomberg macro commentator

    The Trump administration seems to be true to its word that it’s not done with China yet.

    Over the past week, the White House has barred American investments in Chinese firms tied to the military and moved to draft regulations that could de-list Chinese companies from U.S. stock exchanges.

    So far, these moves have had only limited ramifications for financial markets. Chinese ADRS performed roughly in line with U.S. stocks, and the yuan has traded near the strongest since 2018. While companies hit by the sanctions, such as China National Chemical, have seen their dollar bonds sold off, the nation’s broader investment-grade index held up well.

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    After all, the affected bonds were relatively small compared with the size of China’s dollar credit market. Including debt from their subsidiaries, about $54 billion of Chinese bonds could be affected by the sanction, or 6% of China’s total foreign-currency bonds outstanding, according to Goldman Sachs’s analyst Kenneth Ho. In addition, their maturity schedule is spread out over the next decade and beyond, which means there’s limited immediate refinancing risks.

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    For Beijing, the bigger concern is that the U.S. could cut off dollar funding to Chinese banks.

    More than half of China’s $675 billion foreign-currency loans were denominated in dollars, and Chinese banks account for two-thirds of that dollar borrowing, according to a Goldman Sachs analysis of Bank for International Settlements’ data. Any restrictions on dollar funding could disproportionately affect Chinese banks, which in turn could hurt their ability to finance the offshore operations of Chinese enterprises.

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    As a net creditor to the world, China could sell off some of its foreign assets to manage the situation, if push comes to shove. Still, should Trump decide to press the “nuclear” button during his remaining time in office, it could be quite messy and mutually disruptive.

  • Taiwan Grounds Fleet Of US-Made F-16s After Jet Goes Missing 
    Taiwan Grounds Fleet Of US-Made F-16s After Jet Goes Missing 

    Tyler Durden

    Wed, 11/18/2020 – 20:50

    Taiwan grounded its entire fleet of General Dynamics F-16 fighter jets Wednesday after one of the planes went missing shortly after takeoff on Tuesday night, according to a Taiwanese Air Force official who was quoted by Focus Taiwan. 

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    During a press conference, Taiwan Air Force commander Hsieh Jih-sheng said that search and rescue operations were currently underway via the military and coast guard for the F-16, piloted by Colonel Chiang Cheng-Chih.

    On Tuesday evening, the F-16 disappeared from radar screens about two minutes into the flight at about 6,000 feet over eastern Taiwan’s coastal waters. 

    Radar Screen Of Where Plane Went Missing 

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    h/t Taiwan News 

    Jih-sheng said when the incident occurred, “cloud cover was thin at 2,000 feet but thicker from 4,000-7,000 feet.” He said the F-16 was conducting a “scheduled” night drill over coastal waters.

    The grounding involves about 150 F-16s, which have helped deter Chinese warplanes from penetrating deeper into the island’s air defense identification zone (ADIZ). Bloomberg notes Taiwan has scrambled 3,000 jets this year in response to 1,700 Chinese aircraft encroaching on the ADIZ.

    Last month, a Taiwanese F-5 jet crashed into the east coast sea during a training mission. The pilot was killed after he ejected from the plane, prompting a similar grounding.

    “The rescue mission is our top priority now. The air force has grounded all F-16s for checks, and I’ve instructed an investigation into the cause of the incident,” President Tsai Ing-wen told reporters on Wednesday. 

    With F-16s grounded, the Taiwan Air Force must rely on French-built Mirages from the 1990s and F-5s from the 1970s – this could leave the country vulnerable as tensions between the US and China continue to soar. 

    There’s been no word on the fate of the 66 new F-16s that Taiwan is expected to receive after signing a multi-billion dollar deal with the US. 

  • Cuomo Unloads On 'Idiot' Reporter For Asking Simple Question About School Closures
    Cuomo Unloads On ‘Idiot’ Reporter For Asking Simple Question About School Closures

    Tyler Durden

    Wed, 11/18/2020 – 20:30

    Gov Andrew Cuomo must have woken up on the wrong side of the bed Wednesday morning, or perhaps he was frustrated from trying to hash out a plan with his political archnemesis, NYC Mayor Bill de Blasio, to battle the surge in COVID-19 cases and hospitalizations.

    Whatever the reason, America’s favorite book-slanging, COVID-battling governor started a ruckus during the opening minutes of Wednesday’s Q&A session, after laying out a confusing series of changes to the color-coded status of several zip codes around the state. 

    When a reporter implied that parents in NYC were confused about whether schools would be closing Thursday, or not, Cuomo snapped and started berating the reporter, saying his failure to comprehend the order was either the result of genuine stupidity, or the reporter’s own mendacious spirit.

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    But the whole thing fell apart when another reporter spoke up and pressed the question further, challenging the governor to answer one simple question: Would NYC schools remain open tomorrow?

    After another awkward back-and-forth, Cuomo insisted that NYC schools would, in fact, remain open – for now, at least.

    No sooner were these words spoken than the NYT broke the news: the Chancellor of NYC’s schools had alerted principles that all students would return to remote learning starting tomorrow, the paper said.

    Cuomo was seemingly caught off guard, and as stocks reacted negatively to the news, he moved on to the next question, though the palpable tension in the room lingered.

    One Twitter user’s comment about the unhinged rant was particularly apt.

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  • As Clock Ticks On Election Certifications, Here's Where Trump Legal Challenges Stand
    As Clock Ticks On Election Certifications, Here’s Where Trump Legal Challenges Stand

    Tyler Durden

    Wed, 11/18/2020 – 20:15

    As Joe Biden continues to claiming victory (something he said he wouldn’t do until the election was independently certified), various legal challenges brought by President Trump, the GOP, and allegedly disenfranchised voters are working their way through the courts.

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    And unless the courts intervene – up to and including the US Supreme Court – the clock is running out on Trump’s ability to claim victory in light of alleged fraud, as several states move to certify their results.

    While Georgia is set to certify its election results on Friday, Nevada, Michigan and Pennsylvania are expected to follow next week. Arizona, meanwhile, has until Nov. 30, and Wisconsin until Dec. 1, according to Bloomberg.

    States make their election results official through a certification after what’s known as a canvass to account for every ballot cast and to confirm that every valid vote was counted, according to the U.S. Election Assistance Commission. Procedures and deadlines for certifying votes vary by state.

    Certified totals can change if a state allows recounts after certification, which Georgia, Michigan and Nevada do, or if there is a challenge to the election. But certification amounts to a declaration of a winner, and the winning candidate will assume office unless a court intervenes, said Michael Morley, an assistant law professor at Florida State University who’s worked on election emergencies and post-election litigation. –Bloomberg

    “This is going to be a series of dominoes that fall sort of ineluctably toward the conclusion that we already know is true, which is that Biden is the winner of these states and is the president-elect,” said NYU law professor, Richard Pildes, adding: “This will be the formal legal step that cements that.”

    As JPMorgan’s Michael Cembalest notes, however, the US Supreme Court could hear appeals on state challenges, “such as late-arriving absentee ballots in PA (too few to change the outcome); complaints on transparency of vote counting (judicial relief could entail recounting certain counties); illegal acceptance of certain votes (votes in question too small to change the results); and complaints that the voting process suffered from pervasive irregularity and fraud (most of these claims have been rejected by lower courts over the last 2 weeks).”

    Cembalest concludes that “a LOT of very unorthodox things have to happen for Trump to be re-elected,” adding that “Based on the uncertified vote results, Trump would have to reverse or impede results in three states to prevent Biden from reaching 270 electoral votes.“

    That said, he’s not ruling anything out.

    Here’s where things stand with state challenges:

    In Pennsylvania, the Trump campaign continues to seek to block the certification of the results in the state over alleged unfair voting practices in which Democratic-leaning areas were given greater opportunities to correct mistakes on their ballots. A federal suit seeks to challenge over 680,000 mail-in ballots which were counted without proper oversight from GOP poll watchers – who say they weren’t allowed within 20 feet of election counters.

    Trump’s campaign has also accused election officials of violating a judge’s order to allow meaningful access to watchers – at minimum six feet – as long as they adhered to measures implemented to reduce the spread of covid-19.

    Another challenge seeks to disqualify ballots received after election day – which would affect an estimated 10,000 votes, or not enough to overcome Biden’s more than 70,000 vote lead over President Trump.

    In Michigan, where Biden is ahead by approximately 150,000 votes, the Trump campaign is seeking to block certification of results in Wayne County – where the Board of Canvassers just overcame a major controversy in which two Republican members of the four-person body refused to certify the results of the election, only to reverse course three hours later and bend the knee.

    State elections officials will meet on November 23 to confirm the final election results.

    Nevada – also projected to go to Biden by a margin of more than 30,000 votes – has been served with a lawsuit as well, asking that Trump be named the winner or that the results be void with no winner declared and certified. Trump’s team claims that “fraud and abuse renders the purported results of the Nevada election illegitimate,” and alleges that 15,000 people living out of state illegally voted.

    In Georgia, a lawsuit was filed in Chatham County alleging ballot processing issues, while GOP party Chairman David Shafer tweeted that observers saw a woman “mix over 50 ballots into the stack of uncounted absentee ballots.” The lawsuit was dismissed on November 5.

    And in Arizona, the Trump campaign filed a lawsuit on November 7 claiming that legal votes were rejected based on poll watcher affidavits claiming that they had issues with voting machines.

    (h/t BBC.com)

  • "No One Is Bigger Than The Party": At Crucial Juncture In US/China Relations, Xi Aims To Consolidate Power
    “No One Is Bigger Than The Party”: At Crucial Juncture In US/China Relations, Xi Aims To Consolidate Power

    Tyler Durden

    Wed, 11/18/2020 – 20:10

    We documented just days ago that China was expanding its crackdown on tech billionaires after spoiling the Ant Financial IPO. Now, it looks like part of a larger plan for Beijing to consolidate power at a crucial time in U.S./China relations. 

    President Xi Jinping is openly tightening his grip on China’s Communist Party, as denoted by a series of actions he has taken over the last few weeks. The most obvious of these actions was the shocking suspension of the Ant Financial IPO, which was pulled literally hours before the company, valued at $35 billion, was set to begin trading.

    In addition to that, Xi has also implemented new anti-monopoly rules to rein in companies like Tencent and Alibaba, who may be viewed as long term threats to the party. He has also “moved to further snuff out any opposition in Hong Kong’s legislature,” according to Bloomberg. 

    It is proof positive that the Chinese government is acutely focused on anyone and anything that could grow powerful enough to eventually begin to undermine its power. 

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    George Magnus, research associate at Oxford University’s China Centre told Bloomberg: “Xi Jinping certainly seems to be cracking the whip with a purpose and a force that, if not new, is certainly designed to impress upon the party, entrepreneurs, citizens and the rest of the world his authority and determination. I don’t see much that is pre-emptive or getting ahead the curve here. If there were, Xi would be channeling his inner ‘reform and opening up’ appetite. The point is that he doesn’t really have any.”

    The moves come at a time where the outgoing Trump administration is rumored to be preparing more steps that could further distance the U.S. and China. For the last 4 years, the U.S. has worked with global allies to try and secure itself from China’s tech companies, like Huawei, which has been accused of IP theft. 

    China hopes an incoming Biden administration could help put an end to some of those policies. 

    The change in attitude between the two countries has forced China to a strategy of “greater self-reliance”. Party leaders have focused on domestic growth and less reliance on U.S. industry. Xi has said he wants to double the country’s economy by posting growth of 4.7% to 5% annually. 

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    Part of Xi’s moves to consolidate power have coming from trying to “create a balance” to allow domestic growth to occur. Hong Hao, chief strategist for Bocom International in Hong Kong, said: “It is about how best to share the growing pie of economic development and tech innovation.”

    The anti-monopoly rules being put into place give the government “wide latitude” to rein in billionaires like Jack Ma. Beijing likely saw Ant Financial as a risk because its business model “allowed it to charge higher fees for transactions while state-run banks took on most of the risk,” Bloomberg notes. A banking regulator in Beijing last weekend said FinTech companies “shouldn’t form oligopolies, reap excessive returns and harm public interests.”

    Rebecca Fannin, author of “Tech Titans of China”, stated: “Startups will welcome any decline in their monopolistic power because these huge Chinese companies have stifled them, and used their leverage and size to out-innovate them quickly or buy them out.”

    In addition, the state made a big statement last ween when it let a AAA- rated state owned coal miner default on a bond payment, as we documented at the time. 

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    The main message that Xi appears to want to get across to his country, the U.S. – and really, anybody that wants to listen – is that no one is bigger than the party.

    Rana Mitter, professor of Chinese politics at the University of Oxford, said: “Making it clear that the ultra-rich can be brought to heel is important symbolically. However, it also seems likely that the CCP is concerned that major business figures may have political ideas about power, beyond mere wealth. So the use of regulators is in part to reinforce the message that nobody is bigger than the party.”

    “The party values stability over everything. They value it over competition, over fairness, over money. Maybe the only thing they value more than stability is power, and it’s stability that maintains their power,” she concluded.

  • New York Sheriffs Refuse To Enforce Cuomo's Thanksgiving COVID Order
    New York Sheriffs Refuse To Enforce Cuomo’s Thanksgiving COVID Order

    Tyler Durden

    Wed, 11/18/2020 – 19:50

    Authored by Rick Moran via PJMedia.com,

    Several county sheriffs in New York State are saying they will not enforce Governor Andrew Cuomo’s executive order that limits Thanksgiving Day gatherings to 10 people or less.

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    Saratoga County Sheriff Michael Zurlo summed up the sheriffs’ objections nicely. “I can’t see how devoting our resources to counting cars in citizens’ driveways or investigating how much turkey and dressing they’ve purchased is for the public good,” Zurlo said in a press release.

    This has nothing to do with “virus fatigue,” it’s a common-sense rebellion against insanity.

    New York Post:

    In a scathing Facebook post on Saturday, Fulton County Sheriff Richard Giardino questioned the legality of Gov. Andrew Cuomo’s newly instituted 10-person cap on parties and other gatherings in private residences.

    “Frankly, I am not sure it could sustain a Constitutional challenge in Court for several reasons including your house is your castle,” the sheriff wrote in the Saturday post.

    “And as a Sheriff with a law degree I couldn’t in good faith attempt to defend it Court, so I won’t,” he said.

    The time has passed when grasping politicians can use the public health crisis to impose unconstitutional restrictions on citizens. The Great Virus Scare of 2020 is over and if Joe Biden tries to bring it back, he won’t find meek and mild sheep doing everything the experts are telling them to do.

    This, from a Mississippi public health official is typical of the scaremongering that isn’t going to work anymore: “It’s going to happen. You’re going to say hi at Thanksgiving, it’s so nice to see you, and you’re either going to be visiting her by Facetime in the ICU or planning a small funeral by Christmas,” the MSMA president said.

    As for the sheriffs, they’re telling Cuomo that if he wants to keep people apart, he can do it himself.

    Giardino noted his office, with limited resources, has scant legal options to enter private homes other than search warrants, invitations or under an “emergency circumstance.”

    “We have limited resources and we have to set priorities, so obtaining a Search Warrant to enter your home to see how many Turkey or Tofu eaters are present is not a priority,” Giardino wrote.

    This is something Cuomo would know if he weren’t such an arrogant, elitist, snob. Apparently, he thinks that simply by snapping his fingers and issuing a decree, his will becomes law. Sic Semper Tyrannus, baby.

    I have no intention of visiting anyone at Thanksgiving, but that’s my choice. I would suggest that if you do visit relatives that you take simple, common-sense precautions. As far as “planning a small funeral by Christmas” for those who want to visit, Cuomo and other public health dragoons might be surprised at the number of older people with pre-existing conditions who have decided to stay home — all on their own without any help from the government in making the choice.

    Turns out most citizens in America aren’t ten-year-old children who constantly have to be told what to do.

  • Iran Is Already Warming Up To Biden, Suggesting Cancelling Sanctions And Rejoining The Nuclear Deal
    Iran Is Already Warming Up To Biden, Suggesting Cancelling Sanctions And Rejoining The Nuclear Deal

    Tyler Durden

    Wed, 11/18/2020 – 19:30

    Iran’s foreign minister, Mohammad Javad Zarif, seems to be delighted that President Trump is on his way out and President-elect Joe Biden is on his way in. Go figure.

    The country’s foreign minister has proposed “a return to full compliance” of the Iran nuclear deal if Biden lifts sanctions that have been ordered onto the country by President Trump. He has commented that Biden’s administration can use executive orders to lift the sanctions.

    Zarif told a state owned newspaper this week: “The fact that Mr. Biden wants to return to the nuclear deal is great. We’re ready to hold talks over how the U.S. can re-enter the nuclear deal.”

    Eager to make Biden his lapdog, he continued: “I expect the situation to significantly improve in the next few months. When Mr. Biden decides to fulfill U.S. obligations, we will be ready to quickly return to our commitments. This process is not time-consuming at all.”

    His comments were described by Bloomberg as “the most conciliatory yet since Biden was proclaimed the winner” of the U.S. election. Iranian President Hassan Rouhani has said Biden’s election could allow Iran to “move away from an environment of threat under the current insurgent U.S. government toward an environment of opportunities.”

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    The country’s eagerness to jump back into the 2015 deal belies the fact that the country’s uranium stockpile has eclipsed limits set by the deal. Since Trump backed out of the deal, Iran’s stockpile has risen by eightfold to over 5,291 pounds. It’s enough “to create three bombs,” Bloomberg notes. 

    The director general of the UN’s International Atomic Energy Agency said this week that the country is using new high-tech machines to produce nuclear fuel, despite the country denying that it aspires to build bombs. The agency is seeking answers from the country about traces of man-made uranium found at a warehouse in Iran.

    In addition to putting distance between the U.S. and Iran, the Trump administration has also sought to arm Iran’s foes, selling weapons to both Israel and the UAE. Iran will be dealing with a potential political sea change of its own, as it approaches an election in June. The country’s economy has “crumbled” under the U.S. sanctions levied upon it. 

    Biden said back in September: “If Iran returns to strict compliance with the nuclear deal, the United States would rejoin the agreement as a starting point for follow-on negotiations” that would strengthen and extend the deal’s provisions “while also addressing other issues of concern.”

  • Parler CEO Defends Free Speech: "It's Not Against The Law To Have Those Opinions"
    Parler CEO Defends Free Speech: “It’s Not Against The Law To Have Those Opinions”

    Tyler Durden

    Wed, 11/18/2020 – 19:10

    Authored by Jack Phillips via The Epoch Times,

    The CEO of Parler, which has been described as an alternative to Twitter, defended free speech in an interview on Tuesday in the midst of mainstream media-led criticism of the social media platform.

    “People say crazy things all the time,” and “it’s not against the law to have those opinions,” Parler CEO John Matze told Fox News. He was responding to a question about why establishment media outlets have taken an increasingly critical tone against the platform.

    “I always ask them, ‘What do you think of the First Amendment? Do you believe that we should have somebody in New York, let’s say in the middle of Times Square, telling you what you can and cannot say?’” Matze said.

    “Because that’s what these companies are doing.”

    “I don’t know why they’re so afraid. Maybe it’s because they don’t like that people are getting power again,” he continued. 

    “But it’s not against the law to have those opinions,” Matze added.

    “It’s not against the law to express yourself. And if you like one political candidate or another, or you believe or don’t believe in climate change,” he continued, “you shouldn’t be taken offline because of it.”

    After the Nov. 3 elections, Parler has seen a boost in users and traffic, coming after some conservative pundits and officials moved to the platform from Twitter.

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    The firm in late September posted a message about Election Day, saying it will be “a hub for unfettered, curation-free information before, during, and after the November 3 election.” The firm then took a shot at Facebook, Google, and Twitter for attempting to control the flow of information.

    “Google, Facebook, and Twitter, by contrast, have announced plans to control the dissemination of ‘misinformation,’ which means, in effect: to take it upon themselves to tell their users what information they should trust and, ultimately, what they should think,” it said.

    The three firms have posted disclaimers, fact checks, and have limited the reach on posts that allegedly run afoul of narratives they seek to promote.

    Matze’s comments come as Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey and Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg came under fire from Senate Republicans in a Judiciary Committee hearing on Tuesday.

    “That to me seems like you’re the ultimate editor,” committee chairman Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) said during his opening statement to the two CEOs. “The editorial decision by the New York Post to run the story was overridden by Twitter and Facebook in different fashions to prevent its dissemination. Now if that’s not making an editorial decision I don’t know what would be.”

    Some media pundits as well as researchers have complained that Parler allows for the spread of so-called conspiracy theories or disinformation. Bret Schafer, a fellow focusing on disinformation at the Alliance for Securing Democracy, told The Hill:

    “Anytime you take a laissez-faire approach to moderation —you say ‘anything goes’ right up until actual threats of real world violence—that creates a huge space for some really problematic things to happen.”

    He didn’t provide any evidence that showed whether views expressed on Parler have led to violence.

  • China Used 'Secret Microwave Pulse Weapon' Against Indian Troops In Border Battle
    China Used ‘Secret Microwave Pulse Weapon’ Against Indian Troops In Border Battle

    Tyler Durden

    Wed, 11/18/2020 – 18:50

    A report this week in the UK Times has revealed new information on China’s use of a cutting edge high tech weapon during last summer’s high altitude Himalayan standoff between Indian and Chinese troops in the disputed Ladakh border region.

    Initial claims that a military-grade crowd control sonic pulse weapon capable of causing severe bodily discomfort, including dizziness and nausea, was used by China’s PLA military on Indian soldiers along the Line of Actual Control, were recently made by a notable professor at a Beijing university.

    It would mark the first known instance in history such a controversial weapon was deployed in battle. 

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    Illustrative US Air Force image showing an ‘Active Denial System’ or invisible, counter personnel, directed-energy weapon. 

    “Its forces had turned two strategic hilltops that had been occupied by Indian soldiers ‘into a microwave oven’, forcing them to retreat and allowing the positions to be retaken without an exchange of conventional fire, according to Jin Canrong, a professor of international relations at Beijing-based Renmin University,” the Times reports. 

    Also described as electromagnetic ‘microwave’ weapons, when reportedly turned on the Indian forces they retreated during a standoff after becoming sick and vomiting, the professor claimed:

    Jin told his students that within 15 minutes of the weapons being deployed, ‘those occupying the hilltops all began to vomit’. 

    ‘They couldn’t stand up, so they fled. This was how we retook the ground,’ he explained. 

    China’s forces decided to use the weapons because the altitude was too high to fight against a team of Tibetan mountaineering specialists, Jin said. 

    Gunfire is banned under an old agreement, although there were warning shots in September in an exchange of fire which both sides blamed on each other.

    In June Chinese and Indian patrols along the border broke into hand-to-hand clashes that left at least 20 Indian troops killed. The microwave weapon incident was said to have occurred in late August.

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    Via Daily Mail/Epoch Times: China’s so-called Poly WB-1, a type of ‘microwave’ weapon, which was first put on display at an air show in 2014.

    China and India have been engaged in military-to-military talks to attempt to return the region to a peaceful status quo amid the border dispute, which reaches back decades. 

    Each side has accused the other of violating prior agreements, but for now that talks appear to have kept the peace even as a military build-up on each side has continued.

    However, as of September both sides were witnessed sending additional troops and supplies to the harsh high-altitude region, strongly suggesting the standoff will continue for the long haul.

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    Via Daily Mail

    The US military has recently experimented with such ‘sonic weapons’ which are designed to cause an extreme concentration of heat, capable of causing enough discomfort to disperse crowds, but they have long been deemed ineffective on the battlefield, outside of simple urban crown control situations. 

    Assuming these new claims out of China are true, it would mark the first time such a sonic weapon was used in a live battlefield situation on humans. 

  • US COVID-19 Deaths Top 250,000 As Mortality Worst Since Spring: Live Updates
    US COVID-19 Deaths Top 250,000 As Mortality Worst Since Spring: Live Updates

    Tyler Durden

    Wed, 11/18/2020 – 18:42

    Summary:

    • US COVID deaths top 250k
    • Gov Cuomo says Buffalo is worst hit part of the state
    • US suffers most new deaths in months
    • Pfizer vaccine now 95% effective
    • Lucira home test approved
    • Sweden suffers most new deaths in months
    • FDA panel to meet next month to discuss vaccines
    • Tokyo sees record jump in cases
    • PA orders new restrictions
    • India outbreak continues to weaken
    • LA County prepares new curfew orders
    • Sinovac appears to be safe per trial data

    * * *

    Update (1840ET): COVID-19 has killed more than 250,000 people in the US in under than 10 months, according to data from Johns Hopkins University.

    * * *

    Update (1345ET): Gov Cuomo is holding his latest COVID briefing from Albany after urging new yorkers via tweet to limit indoor group dinners this Thanksgiving holiday.

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    Cuomo started by chiding NYers for causing this latest uptick by ignoring the social distancing rules.

    “If you didn’t eat the cheesecake, you wouldn’t have a weight problem,” he said.

    Of course, that ignores the fact that roughly 80% of those infected wear masks.

    Cuomo, who started the Q&A by squabbling with a couple of reporters, started by saying NYC could enter an “orange zone” – which would require schools to close – by tomorrow, though he told reporters that schools wouldn’t be closed tomorrow.

    Under a preexisting law, the Bronx has been designated as a yellow zone. A yellow zone in Queens is also being expanded. This will require additional testing of school teachers and personnel. However, if the city hits the 3% 7-day positivity threshold, Cuomo said, the entire city would become an orange zone, causing schools to close.

    Moving on, Cuomo said during the briefing that Western New York is currently experiencing the “worst situation” in the state of New York, with a positivity rate of 7.3% in Buffalo. Additional restrictions will be imposed in parts of Buffalo too, with one yellow zone becoming an orange zone (which requires schools to go remote).

    * * *

    The biggest COVID-19 related news on Wednesday is the release of the final data from the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine trial, which showed the vaccine to be 95% effective, on par with Moderna’s mRNA vaccine results, which were released earlier in the week. While we await Moderna’s “final” data showing its vaccine to be 96% effective, it’s worth noting that this wasn’t the only new development in the battle against the virus.

    Following the announcement, it was reported that a critical FDA panel will meet on Dec. 8 to discuss the first wave of COVID-19 vaccines, raising the possibility that the first general-use approvals might come around then, or shortly after.

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    Lucira’s rapid home test for the virus was just approved for emergency use by the FDA on Wednesday, granting a powerful new tool that can allow exposed persons to text themselves without potentially putting others at risk. The test is the first that can be fully self-administered, and it can provide results at home in 30 minutes or less. The approval comes at a time when the US is reporting an average of 150,000 new coronavirus cases per day.

    “This new testing option is an important diagnostic advancement to address the pandemic and reduce the public burden of disease transmission,” said FDA Commissioner Stephen Hahn in the statement.

    In other news, after announcing early Wednesday (local time) that Tokyo would be placed on the highest new alert level to stop the spread of the virus, daily coronavirus cases in Tokyo hit a new record of 493 on Wednesday, topping the previous record of 472 set on Aug. 1.

    Across the US, 20 states are seeing hospitalizations reach peak levels.

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    Deaths are surging higher in the Midwest to new record levels, though they’re also rising in other regions as well. The US reported more than 1,550 new deaths yesterday, its largest daily tally since the spring.

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    Over in Europe, Sweden just reported 96 deaths in a single day, its highest daily tally in at least three months. The new numbers brought Sweden’s death toll to 6,321. By comparison, Sweden reported 4,007 new cases on Wednesday, vs. 5,990 the day before.

    Here’s more COVID news from Wednesday morning and overnight:

    Yesterday, Pennsylvania’s Secretary of Health announced new targeted efforts to slow the spread of the virus in the state, including strengthening a mandatory mask order, along with a new mandate for those traveling to PA from out of state (Source: WGAL).

    Following this morning’s Pfizer news, the Indian government is reportedly in talks with Pfizer and Moderna for COVID-19 vaccine.

    Los Angeles County plans to implement a curfew from 2200-0600 beginning on Friday night and restaurants with outdoor dining, breweries and wineries will be reduced to 50% capacity (Source: Newswires).

    The US isn’t the only country with some helpful vaccine news: Sinovac’s vaccine CORONAVAC appeared to be safe and well tolerated at all doses according to Phase 1/2 study, while phase 3 will be crucial to determine the immune response according to researchers. Researchers also stated the vaccine is suitable for emergency use during the pandemic and noted that antibody levels induced by the vaccine were lower than those seen in people that have recovered from the virus.

    Tokyo is preparing to raise its coronavirus infection alert status to the highest of level 4. Elsewhere, South Australia’s Premier announced mobility restrictions amid the ongoing outbreak in the state with all schools, universities, takeaway food, pubs and cafes to be shut for 6 days. (Source: Nikkei).

    India reports 38,617 new cases, up from 29,163 the previous day, bringing the total to 8.91 million. The death toll jumped by 474 to 130,993 (Source: Nikkei).

    South Australia Premier Steven Marshall announced a six-day lockdown to stamp out an outbreak that has now expanded to 22 new cases, warning that the strain of coronavirus detected was especially worrying.

  • Daily Briefing – November 18, 2020
    Daily Briefing – November 18, 2020


    Tyler Durden

    Wed, 11/18/2020 – 18:25

    Real Vision Managing editor Ed Harrison hosts Tommy Thornton, founder of Hedge Fund Telemetry, to discuss the opportunities and risks on the investment horizon. Tommy explores whether the ongoing rotation into value will continue, sharing his views on sectors such as energy, financials, and retail. He and Ed then investigate whether bonds’ rally is a harbinger of trouble for stocks, and how various asset classes such as gold and bitcoin perform should there be a major selloff in the equity market. Lastly, Tommy discusses why he remains bearish on Tesla despite its significant rally, and shares his fundamental analysis of the electric vehicle maker as well as his framework for managing risk. In the intro, editor Jack Farley looks at oil futures, vaccine progress, and MTA’s woes.

Digest powered by RSS Digest

Nov 18

Today’s News 18th November 2020

  • 6 Factors Which Point To A Rigged Election
    6 Factors Which Point To A Rigged Election

    Tyler Durden

    Wed, 11/18/2020 – 00:00

    Authored by Kit Knightly via Off-Guardian.org,

    The US Election is still a burning issue almost two weeks after the people went to the polls, and though the race has been called for Biden by every mainstream media outlet in the world, the recounts are ongoing and irregularities manifest.

    Trump’s legal team, and many in the alternate media, are claiming the election was rigged. With one voice the mainstream media – and the entire political establishment – denounce these claims as “baseless”, and scream there is “no evidence”.

    This is incorrect. There is plenty of evidence, both circumstantial and direct, which breaks down into six basic categories:

    1. Precedent – It has happened before.

    2. Motive – Deep State/Military dislike of Trump’s policies is widely known.

    3. Foreknowledge – Establishment voices predicted this exact situation.

    4. Opportunity – The voting system is highly susceptible to fraud.

    5. Voting Irregularities – Known software “glitches” & irregularities in the reporting of the results.

    6. Cover-up – Dishonesty in the reporting of the situation.

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    1. PRECEDENT

    There is plenty of evidence that US elections have been rigged before.

    Nobody is talking about it much, but US elections have been rigged before. Everyone is more than familiar with the 2000 election, which was called for Al Gore before Florida flipped to Bush and swung the election. The controversy over “hanging chads” and misplaced votes was all people talked about for weeks.

    One noteworthy “error” with electronic voting machines, switched over 10000 votes from Gore to an obscure third-party candidate.

    After weeks of legal battles, Gore eventually conceded. Within a year the “attacks” of 9/11 had happened, and the US was at war in Afghanistan and planning six more wars within 3 years.

    More recently, it was revealed the DNC had gone out of its way to hand Hillary the presidential nomination over Sanders in 2016. Then in the 2020 primaries, despite embarrassingly lopsided losses in the first few primaries, Biden’s presidential campaign had a “miraculous turnaround”, thanks largely to irregularities in postal ballots in Ohio, Wisconsin and New Jersey.

    This is evidence of precedent.

    2. MOTIVE

    The US Deep State has clear and publicly known motives for wanting to remove Trump from office.

    It is no secret that many members of the US’s political establishment oppose Trump and Trump’s policies. This includes neo-con warmongers and chiefs of the military and intelligence agencies.

    “The Resistance”, billed as some voice of the progressive alternative, boasted former members of George Bush’s cabinet as members.

    The most strident opposition to Trump was on foreign policy – most specifically in the Middle East. Trump was committed to withdrawing from Syria, in direct opposition to the “Assad Must Go” crowd at the Pentagon and State Dept.

    Just last week it was revealed that Department of Defense actually lied to Trump about their troop numbers in Syria, claiming to have pulled out almost everyone whilst they actually kept their covert war going.

    Conversely, Biden has always been firmly in the establishment camp on Syria, and many warmongers are already predicting that Biden will want to “restore some dignity” to the Syrian people.

    The US Deep State has carried out coups all around the world, many of them bloody and violent, in order to maintain Imperial ambitions and keep wars-for-profit going. They have every motive to want to remove Trump and put Biden in his place.

    This is evidence of motive.

    3. FOREKNOWLEDGE

    Establishment voices have been predicting, and planning for, this exact situation for almost a year.

    In January of this year – well before anyone could have predicted the effect the “pandemic” would have on the world – legal scholars were Wargaming the outcome of a disputed Presidential election based on postal ballots in Pennsylvania.

    In August a group naming themselves the Transition Integrity Project published a document predicting a “disputed” election, that the counting would take much longer than usual and that it would not be certain who was President until January.

    More generally, the outcome of the election was widely “predicted”, with multiple press outlets claiming there would be a “red mirage” and a “blue shift”. Meaning it would look like Trump would win, and then suddenly Biden would win at the last minute.

    This is evidence of foreknowledge.

    4. OPPORTUNITY

    There is plenty of evidence that the US voting system is open to potential corruption.

    Voting machines, for example, are owned and distributed by private companies. Many of which have political ties. An article in the Guardian, of all places, went into great detail about this just last year, when they were suggesting that Trump may have stolen the 2016 election.

    Likewise, postal ballots are known to be susceptible to fraud. William Barr, the Attorney General, summed it up in a television interview in September, and written reports in 2007 and earlier this year, have gone into great detail about historical cases of postal vote fraud and possibilities of future occurrences.

    This is evidence of opportunity.

    5. VOTING IRREGULARITIES

    There are plenty of irregularities in the results which suggest the possibility of something strange going on.

    The story of the election by the numbers doesn’t really make logical sense. The turnout is said to be 72%, the highest in 120 years, and the first over 60% for over 50 years.

    In the process Joe Biden, we are told, shattered Barack Obama’s popular vote record by almost 10 million votes.

    Joe Biden?

    This Joe Biden?

    …got more votes than Barack Obama or Hillary Clinton?

    Meanwhile Donald Trump increased his own popular vote by over 10 million, whilst increasing his vote share in almost every ethnic demographic, as well as with women and LGBT voters.

    Making him the first incumbent president to increase his popular vote but still lose in over a century, and the only one since all 50 states were part of the union.

    Even if you believe that narrative is possible, there’s more than enough evidence of voting irregularities to warrant at least questioning the result and investigating further.

    In one Michigan county an error in the software configuration swung thousands of votes from Republican to Democrat and called a Congressional seat for the wrong party.

    This error was only spotted because of the historically republican record of the county. In a more hotly disputed seat, this error could potentially never have been picked up.

    Another Michigan county reported an error which switched 5,500 votes from Trump to Biden – a swing of 11,000 votes.

    The software used in this county is used in 30 other states – including Wisconsin, Georgia, Arizona and Pennsylvania, all of which were decided by less than 1% of the vote, and any two of which could swing the election to Trump.

    In fact Dominion, the company which supplied the questionable voting software, was denied a contract by the state of Texas in 2019 when judges found there were “concerns” about “whether [it] is safe from fraudulent or unauthorized manipulation”.

    A subsidiary of Dominion was kicked out of the Philippines for being too easy to hack.

    This video clip appears to show CNN’s coverage switching over 19,000 votes from Trump to Biden in Pennsylvania.

    The graphed results of both Michigan and Wisconsin show decidedly odd jumps in Biden’s vote.

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    The counting itself was also deeply suspect, with several states taking almost a week to count the last few percent of the vote, whilst managing to count over 90% of the vote on the first evening. In Wisconsin the National Guard were brought in to “transcribe” damaged ballots, whilst in Pennsylvania they were allowed to count postal votes with “no clear post mark”, fairly obviously

    As Glen Greenwald wrote, the very fact the count was so arduous and complicated raises questions about the outcome.

    6. THE COVER-UP

    The media are engaging in lies and censorship.

    To state there is “no evidence” of election rigging is a lie. There is plenty of evidence. Every news outlet, channel and website is singing from the same hymn sheet on this – even Fox News, so often Trump’s supposed favourite channel.

    Even before the election, as discussed above, all the mainstream media were running articles defending mail-in ballots, and claiming that they are not historically weak to voter fraud. This is totally untrue, as anyone who cared to research the topic would tell you.

    In fact many countries have incredibly rigid controls on postal voting for exactly that reason.

    And then, after the election, social media companies and mainstream media outlets censor the President of the United States.

    So, why are all the media telling the same lies? Why are people being denied a platform?

    This is evidence of a cover-up.

    *  *  *

    Ask yourself:

    • If, in 2016, some voting software used in 30 states had flipped 5500 from Hillary to Trump, and later been revealed to be financially tied to the Republican party, would that have been “just a glitch”, or evidence of cheating?

    • If the Brexit referendum had swung violently to Leave after dumps of suspect postal ballots were permitted into the count by a judge who was a known Brexit supporter, would the media have kept quiet?

    • If, in Russia, the media denied a platform to the opposition to accuse Putin of voter fraud, would that be “responsible media practice”, or evidence of bias and censorship?

    We don’t know exactly what happened, or how the election was result was controlled, but as of right now the specifics do not matter.

    The point is there is plenty of evidence suggesting something happened, more than enough to warrant asking rational questions and expecting reasonable answers.

    Every time the media ignores the evidence, or censors those seeking it, they only display further that there must be some fire behind all of this smoke.

  • Trapped Travelers In Australia "Scream From Hotel" After Being Ordered Into Another 2 Weeks Of Quarantine
    Trapped Travelers In Australia "Scream From Hotel" After Being Ordered Into Another 2 Weeks Of Quarantine

    Tyler Durden

    Tue, 11/17/2020 – 23:40

    Today in “it’s starting to look a lot like a prison-state using Covid as the excuse” news…

    Harrowing scenes are surfacing at the Peppers Adelaide medi-hotel in South Australia, where travelers who were already in a 14 day quarantine have been told that they have to undergo the 2 week process for a second time. 

    This has resulted in guests screaming from their balconies to be released from the hotel, where some are being forced to stay despite testing negative for Covid, according to news.com.au. 

    The standoff comes as the country tries to deal with a local cluster of cases that has more than doubled. More than 4000 people locally, who are considered “close contacts” have been quarantined, as a result. 

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    Professor Nicola Spurrier, Chief Health Officer, said: “These people have been advised to quarantine and they are being contacted on a daily basis for a symptom check. This is a huge amount of work, as you can imagine, to make sure that we are in regular contact with these people.”

    The country has been able to identify 21 cases linked to one family cluster, which includes three young children and a baby. The state’s draconian measures are coming after reporting 18 new cases yesterday and 5 new cases today. Including the hotel, there are now 34 active cases, with 3 of which coming from a nursing home in Adelaide. 

    The CEO of the Anglicare Brompton Aged Care Home in Adelaide called it his “worst nightmare”. So far, all residents at the home have tested negative and are being tested daily. 

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    The cluster was said to have started by a female cleaner working at Peppers, who then passed it to her family and two unrelated hotel security guards. It has triggered closures and isolation warnings across the area. 

    Second possibly only to some Asian areas, Australia has done well in limiting the spread of Covid throughout the country.

    With just 27,756 cases and 907 deaths throughout the course of the pandemic, the country has been helped along by its geography – and the overreaching measures, like these, it has taken to control and and trace the virus. 

  • Beijing Sends Biden A Warning
    Beijing Sends Biden A Warning

    Tyler Durden

    Tue, 11/17/2020 – 23:20

    Authored by Pat Buchanan via Buchanan.org,

    Because of Donald Trump, Vice President Joe Biden thundered during the campaign, the U.S. “is more isolated in the world than we’ve ever been… America First has made America alone.”

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    Biden promised to repair relations with America’s allies. And he appears to have gone some distance to do so in the congratulatory phone call he received from Prime Minister Yoshihide Suga of Japan.

    According to Suga, during the brief call, Biden said Article V of the U.S.-Japan Mutual Security Treaty of 1960 covers the Senkaku Islands in the East China Sea, islands Japan controls but China claims as its own.

    “President-elect Biden gave me a commitment that Article 5 of the US-Japan security treaty applies to the Senkaku Islands,” said a delighted Suga.

    And what does Article V commit us to?

    “Each Party recognizes that an armed attack against either Party in the territories under the administration of Japan would be dangerous to its own peace and safety and declares that it would act to meet the common danger…”

    Message: The U.S. will treat a Chinese attempt to take the Senkakus, tiny rocky outcroppings in the East China Sea, as an attack on the USA, and America will fight China to secure Japan’s right to keep the islands.

    Biden has removed any ambiguity that may have existed and given Tokyo a U.S. war guarantee that covers the Senkakus.

    The response of China’s foreign ministry was to angrily lay claim to the islands they call the Diaoyus as “inherently Chinese” and to dismiss the U.S.-Japan security treaty as a “product of the Cold War.”

    This diplomatic clash comes as Henry Kissinger was warning the Bloomberg Economic Forum:

    “America and China are now drifting increasingly toward confrontation, and they’re conducting their diplomacy in a confrontational way. … The danger is that some crisis will occur that will go beyond rhetoric into actual military conflict.”

    Kissinger continued:

    “Unless there is some basis for some cooperative action, the world will slide into a catastrophe comparable to World War I.”

    World War I was the worst calamity in Western civilization — until the next war to which it led inexorably: World War II.

    Last week, we also learned that during Chinese military exercises in August, the People’s Liberation Army fired two missiles thousands of kilometers from the mainland that struck a targeted merchant ship sailing in the South China Sea.

    The missiles were the DF-21D and DF-26B.

    Both missiles are known as “aircraft carrier killers.”

    The U.S. routinely moves its carriers through these waters to underscore our contention that neither the South China Sea nor the Paracel and Spratly Islands within belong to China as Beijing claims.

    Consistent with China’s toughening policies toward its neighbors, four members of the opposition in the Hong Kong legislature were ousted last week, which led to wholesale resignations that have left Hong Kong’s governing council under the total control of pro-Beijing hardliners.

    The era of “one country, two systems” for Hong Kong, dating to the transfer of sovereignty by Great Britain, appears to be over. The dissidents and demonstrators who filled the streets just months ago appear to have been routed, and the city’s future looks less like the Hong Kong of yesterday than the Beijing of tomorrow.

    These actions are consistent with the hard lines Beijing has taken on its “reeducation camps” for Uighurs in Xinjiang and its border dispute with India in the Himalayas.

    While Secretary of State Mike Pompeo has lately sought to round up like-minded nations to stand up to China — Japan, Australia, India — there appears to be a reluctance, rooted in uncertainty as to whether Communist China or democratic America represents the future of Asia.

    Trump’s “America First” policy asked the most basic of questions:

    Are all these half-century old alliances, these commitments to go to war for Japan, South Korea, Taiwan and the Philippines, as in Joe Biden’s estimation, assets to be nurtured and even expanded to cover more territories like the Senkakus? Or are they liabilities that could drag us into wars the American people do not want to fight?

    While we reject China’s claim to all the reefs, rocks and islets in the South China Sea and her claim to the Senkakus in the East China Sea, should we be obligated to go to war over these tiny parcels of land, especially when their legitimate owners are unwilling to fight for them?

    Biden repudiates an “America First” foreign policy that puts U.S. security, sovereignty, liberty and vital interests above the interests of any other nation.

    But what is it, then, that Biden puts first?

    Globalism. A New World Order. A Crusade for Global Democracy.

    Been there, done that.

    Sixty years ago when Richard Nixon and John F. Kennedy faced off, the foreign policy debate was over whether the U.S. should fight Mao’s China to defend the tiny offshore islands of Quemoy and Matsu.

    Kennedy thought not. Kennedy won.

  • Huawei Threat "No.1 Concern For Democracy" Globally: National Security Advisor O'Brien
    Huawei Threat "No.1 Concern For Democracy" Globally: National Security Advisor O'Brien

    Tyler Durden

    Tue, 11/17/2020 – 23:00

    Trump is planning to continue hardline measures against China during his last weeks in office, right up until inauguration day on January 20.

    National Security Council spokesman John Ullyot recently boasted to Axios, “Unless Beijing reverses course and becomes a responsible player on the global stage, future US presidents will find it politically suicidal to reverse President Trump’s historic actions.”

    And now in his latest statements National security adviser Robert O’Brien has singled out Chinese telecommunications company Huawei as the “number one concern” for democracy moving forward.

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    US National Security Advisor Robert O’Brien

    “If you believe in democracy and you’re concerned about our elections, that’s the number one concern that we’ve got going forward and that all the democracies have is what China could do with that Huawei backbone in our countries,” O’Brien told The Hill in an exclusive interview. “It’s really quite scary.”

    US defense officials along with the administration have long seen Huawei’s global 5G rollout as but a Trojan horse allowing Chinese intelligence and the PLA military backdoor access to whatever systems go online in host countries, particularly in the West. 

    Indeed O’Brien underscored precisely that it could give the Chinese government “backdoors to pull up every bit of data in the world.” However, US critics would point out this is exactly the kind of data hegemony that the NSA has long sought and practiced, even sweeping up US domestic communications, according to the Snowden archive revelations in 2013.

    Here’s more from the interview according to The Hill:

    “What’s really turned especially the Europeans, but also many of the Asians, is the fact that their personal private data is going to be owned 100 percent by the Chinese Communist Party,” O’Brien said. 

    “Think of what you could do with that from a microtargeting standpoint in an election,” he said. “If you know everybody, if you know their hopes, if you know their fears, if you know who’s having an affair, if you know who’s been diagnosed with cancer, if you know who’s having financial difficulties, if you know what someone’s dream vacation is. Think of taking all that information and then on a micro basis, being able to target that person, to blackmail them, to entice them, to attempt to influence them.”

    Over the past years the US has not just blocked Huawei from US soil (along with other China-based tech companies believed linked to the PLA), but has pressured other countries to ban it as well.

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    A phone retailer in Shenzhen, China, via The Verge.

    Last week President Trump signed an executive order banning US investment in 31 Chinese companies that in some way has provided support to the Chinese military, whether through systems of logistical support. 

  • COVID-19 Ushers In An Unconstitutional Hell For America
    COVID-19 Ushers In An Unconstitutional Hell For America

    Tyler Durden

    Tue, 11/17/2020 – 22:40

    Authored by Michael Walsh via The Epoch Times,

    Thanks to the dreaded Covid-19, it’s good-bye Thanksgiving and, soon enough, farewell Christmas. And after that, who knows?

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    Having discovered that Americans have lost their spines and are now easily penned inside their homes like two-legged sheep, the petty potentates who rule – not govern, rule – far too many states and municipalities have concluded that we will never fight back, never resist, and never reject their latest whimsical edicts.

    For proof, look no farther than California, where 41 of the state’s 58 counties have just been returned to most-restricted status, and a statewide curfew is now being bruited in Sacramento. California is “pulling an emergency brake,” as CCP virus “cases” rise, said Newsom, who recently attended a pricey private birthday party at the exclusive French Laundry restaurant in the Napa Valley, violating his own Caligulan guidelines.

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    There are vague promises that things might begin to open again next year, but don’t hold your breath. “Two weeks to slow the spread” and “fifteen days to flatten the curve” have long since morphed into a semi-permanent nanny state in which the very act of slowing and flattening ensures that the virus will go on indefinitely by guaranteeing a continuous stream of new “cases” with which to frighten the public and increase government power.

    In defiance of all previous medical experience, the Covid “pandemic” has muzzled the population with bank-robber masks, driven families asunder, forced elderly couples to die apart, punished schoolchildren with the false promise of “remote learning,” made Americans eye each other with suspicion and sidle away, and created a near-Stasi level of rats and snitches only too happy to inform on their fellow citizens.

    It’s also killed the hospitality industry, the airlines, and commercial real estate. And all in brazen violation of the Constitution’s explicit guarantees of freedom of speech, assembly, and religious observance.

    It has been a monstrous disgrace, made even worse by its supine acceptance. But even more dire consequences have followed the arrival of the Chinese Communist Party on our shores. In short order:

    Masks became normalized, even mandated, thus allowing the brutal, cowardly thugs of Antifa and Black Lives Matter “activists” to go about in public in ninja mufti, faces concealed in violation of innumerable local ordinances. Once, the wearing of a concealing mask was practically prima facie proof of criminal intent, but now, thanks to the irresponsible and self-aggrandizing Dr. Anthony Fauci and other “experts,” the lack of a mask signals an inability to accept authority and perhaps also a willingness to expel the phantom virus into the faces of the innocent.

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    With the public rise of the neo-fascist Left in the wake of the death of George Floyd in Minneapolis, urban disorder became mainstreamed, justified as it was by calling it “mostly peaceful” protest against the United States of America and its form of government. Even as private gatherings were being banned, thousands gathered in the streets to demonstrate against the American constitution and celebrate Donald Trump’s apparent electoral defeat. Indeed, “Black Lives Plaza” on one of the most expensive blocks in Washington, D.C., violates private property and civil rights within sight of the White House.

    Watching the videos of patriotic Americans who had gathered in Washington, D.C., over the weekend to show support for president Trump’s efforts to legally fight clear vote fraud in the recent election—as is his constitutional right—and who were then set upon, sucker-punched, and otherwise assaulted by the feral minions of Antifa and Black Lives Matter within sight of the White House, was sickening and enraging.

    Once actual peaceful protest had become essentially forbidden, the red-diaper baby media was free to shed its skin-suit of journalistic “objectivity,” enthusiastically join the leftist cadres in its open loathing of Donald Trump and all that he symbolized, and renew its attack on the Constitution, including among other things, the Electoral College, the Senate, and the Bill of Rights. All in the name of a more “honest” journalism adhering to a “higher loyalty,” of course.

    Indeed, the New York Times—Pravda West—in the run-up to the election informed the nation via Twitter that it would be the media that would call the winner of the 2020 election, even before the votes were counted, certified, and sent to the Electoral College.

    “The role of declaring the winner of a presidential election in the U.S. falls to the media,” the Democrat propaganda sheet masquerading as a newspaper proclaimed, falsely.

    It later deleted the tweet and issued a sheepish “apology” for “referring imprecisely to the role of the news media. … [It] projects winners and reports results; it does not declare the winner of the election.”

    Of course, that was a bald-faced lie as well. In fact, insofar as the media is concerned, it does declare the winner—and its word goes. Why else is an often-masked Joe Biden now claiming the non-existent “Office of the President-Elect”? The media couldn’t wait to declare Biden over the top, even though the election is now in its constitutionally permitted disputation phase, and does not go to the Electoral College until Dec. 14.

    Lastly, the Dreaded Covid occasioned a wholesale “emergency” rewriting of voting laws, removing essential safeguards in the name of “safety” and thus permitting a host of outcome-altering refinements, including a record-number of mail-in votes whose provenance is often unprovable, early voting, late voting, and last-minute registration and voting.

    During the counts in crucial swing states, tallies were suddenly halted for a couple of hours in the wee hours as the Democrat urban-machine apparatchiks calculated how many manufactured votes were needed to overtake Trump’s lead and then, two hours later … they appeared, courtesy of foreign-made voting machines with hidden algorithms.

    And all because of the CCP virus. For unless something dramatic happens, the Left will never, ever, ever let us go. Thanks to the hysterical overreaction to the novel coronavirus, the weaponizing of it by the Democrat Party in order change election laws and thus harvest millions of likely fraudulent mail-in votes in key swing states, and a leftist media that speaks with one voice as it gaslights the population with the party line, we are now all living in the unconstitutional hell of the neo-Marxists’ “new normal.”

    How do you like it, America?

  • US Bombers Enter Chinese Air Defence Zone As Beijing Mounts Massive Naval Drills
    US Bombers Enter Chinese Air Defence Zone As Beijing Mounts Massive Naval Drills

    Tyler Durden

    Tue, 11/17/2020 – 22:20

    Two US long-range tactical bombers entered China’s air defence identification zone (ADIZ) on Tuesday in an apparent show of force, just as the Chinese navy was conducting a series of simultaneous massive drills. Aviation tracker Aircraft Spots reported that two US Air Force B-1B Lancer bombers left Andersen Air Force Base in Guam on Tuesday morning and entered China’s ADIZ over the East China Sea, after refuelling in flight during the mission.

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    US Air Force B-1B bomber. Photo: AP

    Since the B1-B – which carries the biggest payload of any US bomber and – and is a departure from the fighter jets and spy planes the American forces have sent before on missions so close to the Chinese coast, the SCMP suggested that the US was sending a blunt warning to China.

    Aircraft Spots said the US bombers flew very close to the northeast corner of Taiwan’s ADIZ and they would have entered the zone if they had continued on the same trajectory. Under international rules, aircraft flying over such zones should notify the relevant authorities before doing so. But the US and Japan do not recognize China’s claims over the area.

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    The bombers’ mission also coincided with massive Chinese naval drills conducted at the same time in the South China Sea, East China Sea and Bohai Sea. Military analysts quoted by SCMP said the exercises were a signal from China’s top brass that the People’s Liberation Army could conduct joint operations in different military theaters (all of which just happen to be in close proximity to Taiwan) at the same time.

    The PLA drills were announced indirectly by China’s Maritime Safety Administration, which issued notices warning vessels to stay away from an area from the southern tip of the Yellow Sea to waters near Hainan Island. The no-go zone included an area with a 5km (3 mile) radius off the coast of Beihai in the southwestern region of Guangxi.

    Another area in the South China Sea, in Honghai Bay southwest of Shanwei in southern Guangdong province, was restricted to traffic from Tuesday morning to early evening for “military training”. Honghai Bay is about 100km (62 miles) from Taiwan-controlled Pratas Island, which is also claimed by Beijing.

    Quoted by SCMP, Hong Kong-based military commentator Song Zhongping said the naval exercises would probably involve rocket launches. “The 5km [3-mile] radius [of the restricted areas] indicates that the strikes are to test their high precision [ability],” said Song, a former instructor in the PLA Second Artillery Corps, the predecessor of the Rocket Force.

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    A People’s Liberation Army ship is seen firing a missile in an East China Sea exercise in August. Photo: PLA via Weibo

    Song said the exercises indicated the PLA could mobilize forces in different regions in an emergency.

    “Unexpected military clashes can happen anywhere, and if conflict happens in the Taiwan Strait, it could quickly turn out to be a large-scale military confrontation, and the Chinese military needs the ability to counterattack in the worst scenario,” he said.

    John Bradford, a senior fellow specialising in maritime security issues at the S. Rajaratnam School of International Studies at Singapore’s Nanyang Technological University, said that by holding four exercises at the same time, the Chinese navy was clearly showing its military readiness.

    “Such demonstrations will become more regular as the PLA Navy continues to expand the size of its force and the range of its operational competencies … In fact, we should expect this sort of thing to happen more frequently as the Chinese navy grows in size and mission,” Bradford said.

    Speaking to the SCMP, Collin Koh, a research fellow also from the S Rajaratnam School of International Studies, said the drills were in response to what Beijing saw as an increasingly complex security environment.

    “What I’ll see as something to watch is how these drills integrate various agencies, such as the PLA, civilian bodies and so on. This would be a logical expectation after the Central Military Commission recently issued a new outline on promoting joint operations in the PLA,” said Koh, referring to the body that commands and controls the military.

     

     

  • NASA Wants To Build A Nuclear Plant On The Moon
    NASA Wants To Build A Nuclear Plant On The Moon

    Tyler Durden

    Tue, 11/17/2020 – 22:00

    Authored by Irina Slav via OilPrice.com,

    NASA is planning to build a base and a nuclear power plant on the Moon by 2026 and is inviting proposals from companies ready to take on the challenge.

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    According to a statement issued by the Department of Energy, the plan will involve the construction of a 10-kW class fission surface power system to be used for demonstrative purposes. The plant is to be manufactured and assembled on Earth and then shipped to the Moon on a launch vehicle. This vehicle will take the plant to Moon orbit, from where a lander will take it to the surface of the satellite.

    The demonstration will continue for one year, and if successful, it could open the door to other missions on both the Moon and Mars.

    “Once the technology is proven through the demonstration, future systems could be scaled up or multiple units could be used together for long-duration missions to the moon and eventually Mars,” said Anthony Calomino, head of NASA’s nuclear technology portfolio at the Space Technology Mission Directorate.

    “Four units, providing 10 kilowatts of electrical power each, would provide enough power to establish an outpost on the Moon or Mars. The ability to produce large amounts of electrical power on planetary surfaces using a fission surface power system would enable large-scale exploration, establishment of human outposts, and utilization of in situ resources, while allowing for the possibility of commercialization.”

    The Moon’s resources, although unproven, have been the topic of conversation for quite some time. Over the last decade or so, several lunar missions have sprung up, seeking to explore the Earth’s natural satellite for minerals and hydrogen.

    The nuclear power plant demonstrator will have the capacity to run for 10 years, according to plans, with its generation capacity enough to power the equivalent of three to four large households.

  • US Military Quietly Bought User Location Data From Popular Muslim App 
    US Military Quietly Bought User Location Data From Popular Muslim App 

    Tyler Durden

    Tue, 11/17/2020 – 21:40

    According to Motherboard, a Muslim prayer smartphone app with tens of millions of downloads has severed ties with a location company that reportedly sold its user data to the US military. 

    Dubbed the “most popular Muslim app in the world,” Muslim Pro has been downloaded more than 98 million times in 200 countries. The app provides users with Muslim prayer times and shows them the direction of Mecca. 

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    Motherboard released the report Monday that said Muslim Pro sold user location data to a company called X-Mode, which collects location data directly from the app and then sells it to contractors or the military. 

    Through public records, interviews with developers, and technical analysis, Motherboard uncovered two separate, parallel data streams that the US military uses, or has used, to obtain location data. One relies on a company called Babel Street, which creates a product called Locate X. US Special Operations Command (USSOCOM), a branch of the military tasked with counterterrorism, counterinsurgency, and special reconnaissance, bought access to Locate X to assist on overseas special forces operations. The other stream is through a company called X-Mode, which obtains location data directly from apps, then sells that data to contractors, and by extension, the military.

    The news highlights the opaque location data industry and the fact that the US military, which has infamously used other location data to target drone strikes, is purchasing access to sensitive data. Many of the users of apps involved in the data supply chain are Muslim, which is notable considering that the United States has waged a decades-long war on predominantly Muslim terror groups in the Middle East, and has killed hundreds of thousands of civilians during its military operations in Pakistan, Afghanistan, and Iraq. Motherboard does not know of any specific operations in which this type of app-based location data has been used by the US military. -Motherboard 

    The report continued: 

    USSOCOM bought access to Locate X, a location data product from a company called Babel Street, according to procurement records uncovered by Motherboard. A former Babel Street employee described to Motherboard how users of the product can draw a shape on a map, see all devices Babel Street has data on in that location, and then follow a specific device around to see where else it has been.

    The Locate X data itself is anonymized, but the source said “we could absolutely deanonymize a person.” Babel Street employees would “play with it, to be honest,” the former employee added.

    USSOCOM purchased the “additional software licenses” for Locate X and another product focused on text analysis called Babel X in April, according to the public records. The bundle of additional licenses cost around $90,600, the records show.

    In a statement, Navy Cmdr. Tim Hawkins, a US Special Operations Command spokesperson, confirmed the Locate X purchase, and added “Our access to the software is used to support Special Operations Forces mission requirements overseas. We strictly adhere to established procedures and policies for protecting the privacy, civil liberties, constitutional and legal rights of American citizens.” -Motherboard 

    Following the Motherboard story, Muslim Pro released a statement via Twitter on Tuesday, outlining how “media reports” about the app selling user data to the US military is “incorrect and untrue.” 

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    According to Middle East Eye, who spoke with Zahariah Jupary, head of community at Muslim Pro, he said Motherboard’s report is “incorrect and untrue.”

    Nevertheless, Jupary said Muslim Pro had cut all ties with X-Mode. 

    “We are immediately terminating our relationships with our data partners – including with X-Mode, which started four weeks ago.

    “We will continue to take all necessary measures to ensure that our users practice their faith with peace of mind, which remains Muslim Pro’s sole mission since its creation,” Jupary said. 

    US Senator Ron Wyden told Motherboard that his office was notified as early as September about X-Mode harvesting phone location data within the US and selling it to military contractors. 

    “In a September call with my office, lawyers for the data broker X-Mode Social confirmed that the company is selling data collected from phones in the United States to US military customers, via defence contractors. Citing non-disclosure agreements, the company refused to identify the specific defence contractors or the specific government agencies buying the data,” he said in a statement.

    Readers may recall we have shared countless incidents of the federal government tracking citizens via their smartphones (see: here & here). Now the government is tracking people through contact tracing apps. Endless tracking – is it time to ditch smartphones? 

  • Apocalypse Now And The Rise Of The Extremes
    Apocalypse Now And The Rise Of The Extremes

    Tyler Durden

    Tue, 11/17/2020 – 21:20

    Via The Swarm blog,

    The Western Minority Report

    A few days ago, we learnt that Joe Biden and his team were considering Janet Yellen as a serious candidate for the next Secretary of the Treasury position. According to betting markets, Lael Brainard may be also well-positioned for the job.

    Such potential links between the future administration and the Federal Reserve should not come as a surprise. First, the independence of the Fed is a myth. Second, since the late 1990’s, there have been two certainties in America (and not only in America): monetary policy and economic policy.

    The fierce debates between Democrats and Republicans are just part of the political show, but they have no serious consequence on the underlying economic policy. In fact, all administrations have done basically the same thing, i.e. postponing the question of the debt and supporting asset wealth.

    The fact that Biden’s team is considering Janet Yellen as a serious option is meaningful, as the former chair of the Fed claimed at the end of October 2016 that “Fed purchases of stocks could help in a downturn”.

    Beyond the Treasury Secretary position, we have also heard radical voices among the Democratic Party calling for the forgiveness of student debt. You can be sure that people who already paid their loan back will appreciate that.

    Once again,the next four years are likely be dominated by money printing and money spending. In fact, MMT has quietly become the golden rule of the United States. And also of Europe and Japan.

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    Would Keynes endorse post-Keynesian economics?

    Almost all public decision makers in the West, whether they are central bankers or politicians, are heavily influenced by the old Keynesian way of thinking.

    Every person who has studied a bit economics may be familiar with the following equation: Y = C + I + G + (X – M), where Y is the GDP, C is consumption spending, I is investment spending, G is government spending, and (X – M) is the trade surplus/deficit.

    No need to be a rock star scientist to understand that increasing public spending mathematically leads to an increase of the GDP. Besides, as the national income grows with Y, consumption spending may continue to rise afterwards (all things being equal), and so on. This theoretical virtuous circle is known as “the Keynesian multiplier”.

    However, this model has serious scientific limits.

    First, it is based on several unrealistic assumptions, like the fact that economic agents are said to be rational, and also the fact that the economy is supposed to reach an equilibrium which does not make any sense for living systems.

    The second objection is the fact that this model is an approximation of very short-lived dynamics. Said differently, it may be true on a few months period, but the previous equation becomes highly unstable on the long run.

    More specifically, the model does not explain the organic economic trajectory of a country, and it does not enable to understand what happens when debt and money supply become out-of-control. John Maynard Keynes did criticize the lack of public intervention during the Great Depression. However, I am not sure that he would have agreed on current policies based on infinite public deficit and permanent monetary expansion.

    Infinite Bailouts

    From Japan to America, all Western countries face a similar problem: their economies are ending a multi-decades Kondratiev wave, meaning that they are facing a structural crisis risk that may be necessary to start a new long period of sustainable economic growth. There are two big reasons for that: ageing population and debt spiral.

    The organic economic demand in those countries structurally diminishes, leading to more solvency issues. While governments and central bankers always intervene to refinance agents, the problem is that such accommodative policies do not affect this organic demand trend. Worse, they create a bigger debt problem, with more zombie agents in the economy and more revenues dedicated to repayment, increasing the likelihood of more bailouts in the future (see There Ain’t No Such Thing as a Free Lunch – Part 2).

    Infinite QE

    Beyond indebted agents, the biggest fear of our decision makers is to let markets crash. Probably, because it would lead to a severe confidence shock. At least for “the Haves” (i.e. upper classes, Baby-boomers). Thus, another priority of the past two decades has been to maintain the upward dynamic of assets like stocks, bonds, and real estate, whatever the cost for the economy.

    Of course, this focus on markets has created severe distortions in the economy, as asset inflation is killing housing affordability and reducing savings capacities, resulting in a durable squeeze of working and middle classes (see There Ain’t No Such Thing as a Free Lunch – Part 1).

    While the so-called Keynesian multiplier effect has become extremely limited, one could argue that today the theoretical virtuous circle has been replaced by a vicious one, as more intervention is likely to lead to more zombification and more financial squeeze, leading to even more intervention afterwards.

    One could this mechanism the negative Brrrr multiplier.

    Supermassive Black Hole

    To summarize, it is impossible for Western countries to create real and durable growth based on nothing, as there is no such thing as a free lunch. It is true that without all the interventions of the past 20 years, the economy might already be in depression.

    But, the Kondratiev wave is a powerful natural force. Despite huge levels of money printing and deficits, such measures have not managed to recreate the growth dynamics of the aftermath of World War II. While Raoul Pal recently described bitcoin as a “supermassive black hole”, I believe that the real supermassive black hole is the end of the long-term cycle.

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    In other words, instead of an economic collapse, all we get is the spaghettification of the economic activity. But this is not good news. Indeed, Western economies are becoming immobile as the possibility of new Kondratiev wave is being postponed.

    The Immobile Republics

    In 1989, French diplomat and politician Alain Peyreffite wrote:

    “Kids are playing on an escalator, walking up in the wrong direction. If they stop to walk, they go downstairs. If they keep on walking, they remain in a stationary position. If they climb faster, they go upstairs.”

    According to him, this tricky game is the fundamental dynamic of all human societies. In the long run, immobile countries will gradually decline, leaving space for those making significant progress (see The Immobile Empire).

    While the US, Europe, and Japan are immobile, willing to do “whatever it takes” to stimulate a dying system, other countries like China have started to restructure their economy, eliminating inefficient agents, creating new opportunities for the coming decades (see Reverse Black Swan?).

    Western governments are not magicians, and there will be no revival without a major economic and financial reset.

    Corruption and Democracy

    Why does it seem impossible for politicians and decision makers to make such a diagnostic? Why are the questions of the debt and money supply never debated in the West? Why all the parties are pursing the same kind of economic policies, whether they are Democrats, Republicans, Socialists, or Nationalists? Why do all central banks seem to reach a perfect consensus at each meeting?

    And more importantly, why have capital and property markets become so important for our decision makers?

    I do not say that there is an easy answer to those questions. Nevertheless, it looks like political power has been more and more monopolized by a cast of people sharing common interests. For instance, the fact that most of them belong to “the Haves” and will be negatively impacted by asset deflation.

    Indeed, Jerome Powell and his S&P 500 ETF holdings is not an isolated case. You can be sure that the next Biden administration will be staffed by persons with quite significant financial and/or real estate wealth.

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    While politicians are good at being vocal about wealth inequalities, especially when they come from the left wing, all them will do whatever it takes to keep stimulating asset prices, leading to even bigger inequalities.

    Why are more and more individuals willing participate to this speculative frenzy? Perhaps, because many among “the Haves not” have become desperately looking for more purchasing power in a world of low wage inflation. Thus, all that remain is the hope of huge capital gains on the stock market, the crypto market or the property market

    We all know that markets have detached themselves from reality. But officials, and especially central bankers, refuse to admit that their policies are fueling bubbles. Probably because their intention is to keep this absurd ponzi scheme alive, as their actions since 2000 have clearly managed to feed a powerful “assets only go up” narrative.

    Where is the glory in that?

    The Rise of the Extremes

    However, more and more people are getting angry as they do realize that such policies benefit to a minority.

    Whatever your opinion on Donald Trump, the 2016 election should not be treated as a “political accident”. Same thing for the Brexit, Catalonia independence movement, recent success of Italian Lega Nord party or the Five Star movement, and the French “yellow vests” protest.

    More and more people are getting fed up with the so-called “elites”. They feel that Western democracies are being controlled by mafia-style administrations which are corrupted and only work in their own interest.

    Of course, the Trump administration did exactly the same thing as their predecessors in terms of federal deficit and money printing. However, the 2016 election and the record number of people who still voted for him recently despite all the media calling “to defend democracy by voting for Biden”, shows us how deep the political fracture in the West is.

    Apocalypse Now?

    2020 will end soon, and the current picture is unbelievable. Every week, the world most powerful central bank, the Federal Reserve, is multiplying media interventions to make sure that the fragile “assets only go up” narrative does not break. So, what’s next for America and Europe?

    In my opinion, there are three possible scenarios for the future of the West, and each one is a dystopian perspective:

    #1 – The narrative is finally broken and markets crash. This is the most likely scenario, as History shows us that it almost always ends like this. Central banks lose control and the West enters depression.

    #2 – Political chaos spreads up with systemic dislocation in Europe and/or in America.

    #3 – More and more trade exchanges are paid in non-dollar currencies (e.g. Chinese renminbi), meaning that Western fiat currencies quietly collapse, forcing central bankers to desperate moves that could break their financial system.

    In fact, you should probably expect a mix of those three scenarios.

    For those who do not believe that Western democracies can fail, I recommend they read more about the Mississippi Company bubble, the impact of the crash, and all the political events in France at the end of the eighteenth century.

  • China's Xi: World Economy In Worst Recession Since Great Depression
    China's Xi: World Economy In Worst Recession Since Great Depression

    Tyler Durden

    Tue, 11/17/2020 – 21:00

    Chinese President Xi Jinping told the 12th BRICS summit via video link on Tuesday that the global economy is experiencing “the worst recession since the Great Depression of the 1930s” according to state media Xinhua.

    He made the remarks while urging BRICS countries to cooperate in maintaining multilateralism which he said is a greater guarantee to “safeguard world peace and stability” during the tumultuous challenges of COVID-19.

    According to Xinhua, Xi also urged “openness and innovation to facilitate global economic recovery, as well as green and low-carbon development.”

    “At present, the world is caught between the most serious pandemic in the past century and momentous changes never seen in the last one hundred years,” Xi said.

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    Chinese President Xi Jinping, illustrative file image via Xinhua

    “Despite all this, we remain convinced that the theme of our times — peace and development — has not changed, and that the trend toward multipolarity and economic globalization cannot be turned around,” the Chinese president added.

    His proposals during the speech to lift the global economy out of COVID recession were summarized as follows in state sources:

    • Upholding multilateralism and safeguarding world peace and stability;
    • Deepening solidarity and cooperation in jointly coping with the challenges of the COVID-19 pandemic;
    • Upholding openness and innovation to boost global economic recovery;
    • Prioritizing people’s livelihood and promoting sustainable development across the world;
    • Upholding green and low-carbon development and promoting harmonious co-existence of man and nature.

    Xi gave the speech also on the heels of Sunday’s historic signing of the Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership, or RCEP, which had been eight years in the making.

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    The RCEP agreement was signed during the annual summit of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN), and effectively established the world’s largest trading block that is expected to encompass almost one-third of all global economic activity, crucially without the United States. It will go down in history as the biggest free trade deal ever among fifteen Asia Pacific Nations and involves ten ASEAN bloc member nations including Brunei, Cambodia, Indonesia, Laos, Malaysia, Myanmar, the Philippines, Singapore, Thailand and Vietnam – and additionally their trade partners Australia, China, Japan, New Zealand, and South Korea.

    This past weekend China’s Premier Li Keqiang was cited in state media as hailing it as a “victory against protectionism” and in international media reports called it “a coup for China” which will bolster Chinese claims that it remains a “champion of globalization and multilateral cooperation”.

    “The signing of the RCEP is not only a landmark achievement of East Asian regional cooperation, but also a victory of multilateralism and free trade,” Li said, after it’s been in negotiations for eight years.

    This is a theme that Xi picked up on during his Tuesday speech which offered multilateralism as the chief antidote to lift the region out of recession. 

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    Meanwhile, the incoming Biden administration is expected to garner support from US allies in maintaining a firm line against China, as South China Morning Post notes on Tuesday:

    In a rare joint opinion piece, French Foreign Minister Jean-Yves Le Drian and his German counterpart Heiko Maas outlined their call in The Washington Post on Monday, less than two weeks after the US election.

    “With Biden, greater transatlantic unity will be possible with regard to autocrats and countries that seek to enhance their power by undermining international or regional order. But a principled approach does not exclude dialogue and cooperation,” they wrote.

    “Under a Biden administration, the compass needle of US foreign policy will continue to gravitate toward China, which we see as a partner, competitor and systemic rival at the same time.”

    They urged greater US-European unity in the face of a growing and increasingly assertive China, as well as Russia and Iran.

  • Q&A On The Birth Of "Fake News" A Century Ago
    Q&A On The Birth Of "Fake News" A Century Ago

    Tyler Durden

    Tue, 11/17/2020 – 20:40

    Submitted by Carl M. Cannon, Washington bureau chief for RealClearPolitics; John Maxwell Hamilton, author of  “Manipulating the Masses: Woodrow Wilson and the Birth of American Propaganda” (LSU Press), discussed his new book with RealClearPolitics.

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    So “Fake News” isn’t something Donald Trump invented, is it? The phrase has been thrown around for a long time, predating Trump’s presidency by exactly 100 years.

    More than a hundred years. A small book was published in 1914 on the subject, “Fakes in American Journalism.” An 1897 book exposing sensational reporting of the Spanish-American War was called “Facts and Fakes About Cuba.” In World War I, as today, the term “fake news” and its equivalents were put to many uses, some of them, paradoxically, to promote falsehoods.

    The Committee on Public Information, President Wilson’s wartime propaganda agency and the subject of my book, discredited information that ran counter to the administration’s point of view by calling it “enemy talk.” It added weight to this by trying to convince Americans that spies lurked everywhere, spreading pernicious information. By the way, only one, rather dopey spy, was apprehended and found guilty.

    Meanwhile journalists leveled charges of “fake news” against the CPI, although the term they favored was “creeling.” This was in reference to the hyperkinetic head of the CPI, George Creel. Today the word we use for this is “spinning.”

    Professor, I happen to know that you were researching this topic before Trump entered politics, but I’ll hazard a guess that when he popularized the phrase “Fake News,” you weren’t sorry. When did you realize that you had more than an academic book on your hands — that this is a subject every political practitioner, historian, and journalist is obliged to know?

    I knew the subject was relevant when I started. The CPI was our first and only ministry of propaganda. It only lasted for the duration of the war. But its techniques and mindset lived on. I wanted to show how easy it is for a president to push the boundaries of propaganda. I found more abuse than I expected – the use of front organizations and other forms of deception, coercion, highly emotional appeals that promoted hatred and fear, to name a few of those abuses.

    And then, out of nowhere, in the middle of my research, President Trump appeared to illustrate the point I was making on the ease with which boundaries can be pushed. He has, from first to last, aggressively appropriated the trappings of the presidency to enlarge the Trump brand, down to putting his name on coronavirus relief checks and playing “Hail to the Chief” while he declared, inaccurately, that he won the election.

    What would gratify me most with regard to this book is if it elevates awareness of the danger that lies in the power the president has to propagandize and if it prompts steps to fence back those powers.

    Your new book documents the practice of disseminating premeditated propaganda to the American people to the First World War. Yet, your prologue is set in 2003, during the second U.S.-Iraq war. Do you think U.S. presidents feel more entitled to deceive the American people during wartime?

    Government leaders were cognizant of the importance of public opinion before the war and sought to sell themselves and their ideas. But their approaches were as primitive as trepanning is for brain surgery. The Great War accelerated the search for means to use and bypass the news media to shape thoughts. The war – the first total war – required national mobilization of matériel and minds. By the end of the war governments had become much more sophisticated about mass manipulation, and propaganda was an established part of governing, as well as business.

    War has, ever since, accelerated improvements, if that is the right word, in propaganda. This is for an obvious reason. Wars are a matter of urgent national security, or at any rate they are waged based on that belief. Just as ammunition manufacturers ramp up production and improvise when war occurs, so do propagandists. They believe that nothing is more important than winning and that means getting public opinion behind the war. And, yes, that means taking shortcuts to keep people in line. At the end of the war, in a great moment of clarity, George Creel said in a speech to Chicagoans, “With the existence of democracy itself at stake, there was no time to think about the details of democracy.”

    In his excellent book, “When Presidents Lie,” Eric Alterman details how presidents often shade the truth — not to protect troop movements and the like — but to stage-manage public opinion into empowering them to launch wars. Early on in your own narrative, you point out how French officials imposed news blackouts in the fateful first week of August 1914. Their aim was to eliminate coverage sympathetic to a peaceful resolution of Europe’s crisis. It’s almost too profound to contemplate the suffering and carnage that could have been spared had World War I been avoided, isn’t it?

    British Prime Minister Lloyd George acknowledged after the war that if journalists had revealed the carnage on the battlefields, the public’s demand for early peace would have been irresistible. There are very good arguments why an earlier peace, one that did not have one side winning overwhelmingly, would have led to a fairer peace, which would have lessened the likelihood of a second world war. There was another long-term consequence of the suppression of information during the war. We often mark the Vietnam War, and the attendant withholding of facts, as the point at which the public started to become deeply cynical about the government. But this process started in World War I. Large elements of the public felt they had been tricked. Frank Cobb, the well-respected editor of the New York World, helped the administration with propaganda during the war. Afterward he rued that government propaganda had “goose-stepped” public opinion. And he feared what would come next. “God forbid,” he cautioned, “that our supreme achievement in the War should be the Prussianizing of ourselves.”

    “Manipulating the Masses” begins before the United States entered the war in 1917. You remind us that during the 1916 presidential election year in the United States, German propaganda was so heavy-handed that it backfired — it helped get Woodrow Wilson reelected — while the British propagandists demonstrated great caution and restraint, but only for tactical reasons. Although we live in less-subtle times, foreign powers are still trying to influence U.S. public opinion, aren’t they?

    Disinformation and other foreign meddling with public opinion has become a threat to national security in the same way that terrorism and nuclear proliferation are. Dealing with this threat is as high a priority. It must be acknowledged, too, that as much as we decry this activity by other countries, we do it ourselves to many of them.

    Interference like this is a large part of the CPI story. British archives are full of notes in which officials lamented that they are ingénues in the arts of propaganda and that the Germans were brilliantly insidious. British officials sincerely believed this, but, really, they were the ones who were brilliant and insidious, not least of all at persuading opinion leaders in the United States to favor British interests.

    Once the United States went into the war, the CPI actively sought to shape public opinion in allied, neutral, and enemy countries. It was not above using surreptitious methods, including the secret subsidization of news.

    Ironically, the CPI was suckered into a White Russian disinformation scheme that prefigures the similar disruptions today. The duping of the CPI is a complicated story, as disinformation plots always are, but briefly it goes like this: White Russians faked documents to portray the Bolshevik leaders as German agents who therefore had no legitimacy. These documents were fed to Edgar Sisson, a senior CPI official in Russia, who brought them to Washington. The CPI successfully rammed them down the throats of American media.

    The Wilson administration, which did not recognize the Bolshevik government, welcomed the Sisson Documents, as they came to be called, because they justified its decision to violate Russian sovereignty by joining in an Allied invasion of Russia. Few Americans today are aware of this invasion, but the Russians remember it. The Sisson Documents fueled Soviet-American animosity, and they fueled the Red Scare in the United States. They are a powerful example of the dangers that lie in what we call today “confirmation bias,” that is to say, the  eagerness people have to embrace fake news that confirms what they want to believe.

    Back to Wilson’s reelection in 1916. Tell our readers a little bit about Robert Woolley, who headed the publicity bureau of the Democratic National Committee.  

    Robert Woolley has not received the historical attention he deserves. It is difficult to see how Wilson could have won without him. Woolley had been a newspaperman, Senate aide, and longtime Democratic political operative. At the start of the campaign it was generally agreed that the victor would be Republican Charles Evans Hughes. Woolley helped Wilson eke out a victory by changing the way campaign publicity was done. He started on the campaign very early, prefiguring the continuous campaign cycle that now exists. Then, as the Republicans acknowledged afterward, Woolley expertly managed the flow of information to the press and the public. Roosevelt credited him with “the most brilliant achievement in the history of American politics.”

    Woolley is important to the CPI story for two reasons. First, his publicity bureau became the test kitchen for the CPI. Woolley’s deputy, incidentally, was Creel. Second, and related to this, this episode established a pattern in which the way one uses information to win election shapes how one governs. Consider President Barack Obama, who harnessed social media in his presidential campaign. In office, he created an Office of Digital Strategy to reach the public directly via social media. More than half the staff had worked on an Obama presidential campaign.

    One final point, if I may. I think Hughes would have been a better president than Wilson. This is certainly the case as it relates to free speech. Later, as chief justice of the Supreme Court, he led the way on privileging the First Amendment. Wilson subverted it.

    Realizing that Woolley’s grandson is Chuck Robb, who was both governor and senator from Virginia – and Lyndon Baines Johnson’s son-in-law — who in modern American politics does Woolley bring to mind?

    This is a difficult question. Maybe David Axelrod, a former Chicago Tribune reporter and ardent Democrat who helped President Obama with communications strategy. He has attested to the point I made above about the link between campaigning and governing. Regarding the selling of the Iran nuclear agreement, which deftly and controversially used social media, he said the administration “approached these major foreign-policy challenges as campaign challenges, and they’ve run campaigns, and those campaigns have been very sophisticated.”

    In 2020, conservatives — and a handful of old-school journalists — complained that the mainstream media essentially censored news unfavorable to Joe Biden, especially regarding his son Hunter’s shady business machinations in Ukraine and China. Although the establishment news outlets scoffed at the very idea that they were censoring news, a reader of your book might think, ‘They’ve been doing it for more than a century.’ I’m thinking now of George Creel, the evil genius at the center of your story. A well-known Midwestern muckraker in 1916, he essentially lobbies the Wilson administration for the job of being chief censor. What motivated Creel, who’d made his name as a muckraker?

    George Creel was, through and through, a fighter. He had a bulldog face and spoke through clenched teeth. He was one of the more colorful members of that group of journalists whom we call muckrakers. Muckrakers spoke frankly of seeking to clarify public opinion by providing the sunlight of fact. They often chose political sides when they thought those sides would lead to better government. It was an easy call for them in general and Creel in particular to join the CPI. They would help the public understand. The problem was that these trust busters created a government information-trust that inevitably became an instrument of the administration. Creel, a longtime supporter of Wilson, fought to get the job, using his connection with the secretary of the Navy, newspaperman Josephus Daniels, whom he had defended from criticism during the 1916 election. Creel was a poor choice to head the CPI given the ease with which his emotions ran amuck.

    So Creel is put in charge of something called the Committee on Public Information. What did the CPI do exactly?

    The CPI had no plan to begin with. But it had energy. Creel was correct when he said, “There was no part of the great war machinery that we did not touch, no medium of appeal that we did not employ.”

    The CPI shot propaganda though every capillary in the American bloodstream. It was a publishing conglomerate, with a daily newspaper, pamphlets, news services at home and overseas, syndicated stories and cartoons, and thousands of press releases. The CPI made prepackaged news a quotidian aspect of governing.

    CPI advertisements were ubiquitous in newspapers and magazines. Families watched CPI-produced films in theaters across the country. Its Division of Pictorial Publicity produced nearly 1,500 poster designs, cards, advertisements, seals, and buttons for 98 agencies and committees. The CPI distributed tens of thousands of slides taken by the military.

    The CPI was creative in enlisting the motion picture industry, advertising associations, universities, and others who could give it pathways into American homes and minds. The Boy Scouts, traveling salesmen, and corporate titans did the CPI’s bidding.

    Did CPI suppress speech as well as disseminate the official government line?

    We often think of propaganda one dimensionally, as only the provision of information. But if one is eager to shape thoughts, it is essential to suppress information that challenges the beliefs you instill in the public’s mind.

    When the CPI was created, the idea was that it would handle censorship, which Wilson expected to be enacted in a law as all-encompassing as the British Defence of the Realm Act. Congress would not go this far. The military, the Post Office, and the Justice Department did get legal powers to control speech. The CPI had referred power from these entities to censor. Beyond that, the CPI did what it could to bully the press to conform. Because the government could block periodicals from the mail, refuse use of the cables, withhold newsprint, and close movie theaters – and because Creel was seen as so influential in such decisions – he had considerable bullying power.

    There are other several villains in your story, besides Creel. A hero here and there, too, including the now-forgotten Vira Boarman Whitehouse. What drew you to her story?

    Not all propaganda is bad, and Vira Whitehouse shows us why. One of the CPI’s great contributions was to conceive public diplomacy. They did not use that term, but they understood the value of reaching the man and woman on the street overseas. This can be very useful in building goodwill abroad, if it is done honestly. But embassies at the time did not want it done at all. They thought this was a waste of time and if something like it was done, it should be done clandestinely.

    Whitehouse was wealthy and beautiful, and she was tough. She led the successful drive in 1917 to win the right for women to vote in New York. Creel, who was an ardent supporter of the suffrage movement, sent Whitehouse to Switzerland where the legation gave her a reception as chilly as the Alps. Allen Dulles, who was starting his career, suggested that she pose as a journalist rather than work openly. She declined and became so fed up with the embassy’s resistance that she returned home and took the matter up personally with Wilson. To the amazement of many, including Creel, she prevailed and returned to Bern. At the end of the war, Dulles said, “Mrs. Whitehouse – I am frank to admit – is doing good work, much better than I had thought possible. She is having a real influence in placing American news in the Swiss press and is in touch with a great many influential Swiss. … The influence of America in Switzerland is tremendous now.” This, however, did not stop Dulles from using journalists for intelligence gathering and spreading false information when he became head of the CIA many years later.  

    In 2020, Facebook and other social media firms were concerned about how political speech, some of which included false or misleading information, would be weaponized by the geometric nature of communications in the Digital Age. But a century ago, George Creel organized the “Four Minute Men” to accomplish a similar aim. This army of 75,000 amateur orators delivered speeches in union halls, churches, synagogues, and social clubs to tens of millions of Americans. Is there anything sinister about this kind of thing — then or now?

    I would not use the word “sinister.” But I would say that the Four Minute Men had a sleight-of-hand quality to them. These speakers were leading citizens of their community. They were trusted. This apparent grassroots authenticity, however, was carefully orchestrated by Washington. The speakers were given new topics every few days, for instance, to urge people to buy war bonds, donate their binoculars to the Navy, and look out for spies. The speakers were given canned speeches. Guidance was so detailed that Washington told state chairmen how to run meetings with their local chairmen. Speakers were monitored by local leaders and local leaders were monitored by state leaders, and – well, you get the idea.

    Last question, Jack. Knowing that our own government has been putting its thumb on the scales of public opinion for 104 years and counting, what do tell your journalism students at LSU about handling government-provided information? What advice would you give in this regard to working journalists covering American politics at this contentious crossroads of American history?

    I am deeply troubled by trends in journalism. We can blame the Trump administration for perverting the White House press conferences. But the press has done its part to turn them into circuses as a result of reporters viewing them as an opportunity to get attention for themselves. Some exceptional reporting is being done by print and broadcast journalists, but too often the press shows its bias not only in story selection but also in the way reporters characterize events. It is disturbing to me that some journalists on our most esteemed newspapers say neutral journalism is old-fashioned.

    This is not so, and it is not what our school at Louisiana State University teaches students. We teach them to give the government a fair shake but also question and probe. We provide tools to do this. For instance, we teach them how to interpret data. The house of journalism is diverse. We have room for pundits and analysts. But an enormous portion of that house must be a space for straight, unembroidered reporting. That kind of reporting shows respect for democracy. Democracy privileges process. It presupposes that open, fact-based deliberation ensures better outcomes.

    The story of the CPI is a story of good men and women who lost their way when they worked for the government. As I said earlier, there is much we can do to put boundaries around the power of government to use our tax dollars to tell us what to think. But journalists have to police themselves. And that policing should begin in journalism classrooms in order that it may more readily carry on in newsrooms.

     

  • ISIS Terrorist Who Authored 'Effective Stabbing Techniques' And 'How Does A Detonator Work' Released In Oregon
    ISIS Terrorist Who Authored 'Effective Stabbing Techniques' And 'How Does A Detonator Work' Released In Oregon

    Tyler Durden

    Tue, 11/17/2020 – 20:20

    Federal authorities in Oregon have released a wheelchair-bound ISIS terrorist in the town of Troutsdale, while he awaits trial early next year for allegedly working with ISIS against the United States.

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    31-year-old Hawazen Sameer Mothafar, a US resident, was charged by a grand jury with two counts of conspiracy to provide material support to a designated terrorist organization, and one count of providing and attempting to provide material support. He has also been charged with making false statements when he denied his ties to the terrorist organization in an immigration application.

    Mothafar had conspired with ISIS for over half-a-decade, according to a nine-page indictment highlighted by Judicial Watch.

    He produced and distributed ISIS propaganda and recruiting materials created and edited in coordination with the terrorist group’s official media operatives overseas. This includes the production, editing and distribution of many publications and articles in a pro-ISIS online media organization. Among his writings is a piece titled “Effective Stabbing Techniques,” which provides detailed guidance on the best way to kill and maim a target during a knife attack. Mothafar also published a tutorial in an Arabic publication titled “How Does a Detonator Work,” that explains in detail the use of explosive ignition devices. The same issue of the Arabic edition includes info graphics containing a picture of the Eiffel Tower in Paris and Statute of Liberty in New York on fire with a caption indicating that they will soon be attacked. Another one of Mothafar’s propagandas encourages readers to carry out attacks in their home countries if traveling overseas to fight is not possible. –Judicial Watch

    The lion’s share of Mothafar’s writings were published by an online terrorist media conglomerate known as Al Dura’a al Sunni, or Sunni Shield, which distributes pro-ISIS propaganda. He also moderated private chat groups for the media outlet, and was in regular contact with ISIS leaders overseas according to the indictment. He was also somewhat of an IT guy, troubleshooting tech issues for the organization, along with providing high-level terrorists with technical support – including establishing social media an email accounts for their activities.

    According to a senior ISIS official being held in custody in Iraq, it was Mothafar’s job to provide the Jihadis with “new accounts when we needed new accounts as soon as possible.”

    In December 2019, Mothafar tried to acquire information involving piloting a drone carrying an object for Saleck Ould Cheikh Mohamedou, an Islamic extremist convicted for trying to assassinate Mohamed Ould Abdel Aziz, the former president of the northwest African nation of Mauritania. Mohamedou is currently incarcerated there for the failed attempt. –Judicial Watch

    “This defendant is a legal permanent resident of the United States who abandoned the country that took him in and instead pledged allegiance to ISIS and repeatedly and diligently promoted its violent objectives,” said Oregon’s top federal prosecutor, Billy J. Williams, in a statement earlier this month.

    As a condition of his release, Mothafar – who has pleaded not guilty – will have restrictions on travel and the use of electronic devices. He was released because he “has physical disabilities and is confined to a wheelchair,” according to the DOJ.

  • Is There Really A China Economic Miracle?
    Is There Really A China Economic Miracle?

    Tyler Durden

    Tue, 11/17/2020 – 20:00

    Authored by Daniel Lacalle,

    The year 2020 will be an extremely tough year for the European economy. Added to an unprecedented drop is a strong impact in the fourth quarter due to the new lockdowns. Morgan Stanley estimates that the eurozone’s GDP will fall by 2.2% in the fourth quarter, a 7% drop in the full year 2020. In addition, the investment bank lowers the outlook for 2021 with a rebound of only 5% in the average of the euro area, delaying the recovery of 2019 GDP to 2023.

    The “jobless recovery” is even more worrying. The apparently spectacular rebound data for the third quarter resulted in zero job creation. Unemployment in the eurozone in September stood at 8.3% and in Spain at 16.5%, not counting the millions of furloughed jobs in Europe.

    In this environment, the United States’ recovery seems much stronger. GDP recovered in the third quarter to just 3.5% below 2019 levels. Unemployment has fallen to 6.9% in October but remains well above the record employment levels of 2019.   

    However, the data from China is apparently spectacular. The manufacturing and services index already show an enviable expansion. GDP for the first three quarters is already growing at 0.7% after an expansion of 4.9% in the third quarter. Urban unemployment in China is 5.4% after shooting to a paltry 6%. What is behind the Chinese miracle compared to the poor eurozone?

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    A planned GDP. The GDP of China is dictated by production, not demand. It is not an observed GDP, but rather planned by the government together with the provinces. For this reason, many analysts scrutinize the data and deduct various factors, including the increase and valuation of inventories. It is not by chance that inventories of iron ore, automobiles and finished goods have risen to the highest level in seven months as the economy recovers. If the economic situation were in the announced expansion, inventories would be falling rapidly when sold. Much is produced that is then not sold and remains in warehouses. Thus, it is not surprising that industrial prices fell 2.1% in September, export prices 0.9%, and the country’s debt soared 13.5% amid an apparently miraculous recovery. Industrial business profits have fallen 2.4% between January and September and, furthermore, factory door prices fell faster than expected in September and were at risk of deflation. These are signs of a slowly recovering economy, like all others, but not of a growth miracle.

    In most economies, inventories are valued at market prices, while in China they are valued by the authorities and adjusted later. Constant methodological and base changes also lead to doubts regarding annual growth, despite the evident increase in transparency in recent years. Another difficult factor to analyse is the growth of construction activity, in a country where overcapacity is evident and ghost cities and white elephant uneconomical projects are multiplying.

    The reduction in urban unemployment also hides a more complex reality. Unemployment in China is close to 11% on average, according to the Long Run Trends in Unemployment and Labor Force Participation in China study (NBER Working Paper No. 21460), and probably well above 13% in the midst of the Covid-19 crisis. 

    According to Capital Economics, Nomura or HSBC University of Beijing, another important challenge is calculating GDP with a realistic deflator. By using a deflator – the impact of prices on GDP – that is much lower than the observed one, GDP appears artificially higher than it really is. In an economy where inflation is underestimated, nominal wages, which grow at an official 3.6%, lose purchasing power almost every year due to the real cost of living, especially in food and daily expenditures, which are much higher than the official ones.

    In a recent study (A forensic examination of China’s national accounts, Wei Chen et al, 2019) the authors concluded that China’s GDP may have been exaggerated by around 2% per year between 2008 and 2016, showing that China’s real GDP is probably 18% lower than the official figure. China’s GDP is never revised, and the December figure simply stands and is consolidated without question. This is an important factor that the Chinese authorities have tried to correct with greater transparency and adjustments by the NBS (National Bureau of Statistics). The problem is that provinces have accelerated their race in the effort to provide spectacular figures and the magnitude of the corrections of the national office does not compensate for these “exaggerations”.

    Another problem is that annual revisions compute for growth but are not revised in the GDP figure for the year. The calculation base is reduced. For example, according to independent consultancy China Beige Book, gross capital formation for the third quarter of 2019 has been revised down by 2.3 trillion yuan. As the 2019 figure falls, the growth on the same data for 2020 seems spectacular. That same review was made with the retail sales figure. Those for August 2019 were revised down by 50 billion yuan and the growth figure for 2020 seems miraculous. However, a revision of such depth in the base calculation of figures for 2019 did not generate a downward revision of the GDP for that year.

    These methodological problems are added to the survey used for the calculation. The government uses a list of companies that generate a minimum amount of revenue. That list grows and shrinks, creating homogeneity problems that the NBS tries to adjust for.

    In the United States, each daily, weekly, and monthly data is analysed by different independent entities and each data point is impossible to manipulate by a government authority. That is why the GDP is constantly revised. China’s GDP is the only one that is not revised. It is published and consolidated.

    It is a shame, because the reality observed by companies and citizens in China is that the economy is recovering slowly and unevenly, but it is recovering, probably with a year-on-year drop of 2.5% which would be, in any case, a very positive figure. Falling into planned overcapacity and excess of triumphalism on the part of some provinces competing to provide better data than others ends up questioning the reality of the improvement in the economy.

    Beijing has pledged to bring the data up to IMF standards, but lack of independent scrutiny and the competition from the provinces when it comes to providing positive and spectacular figures continue to generate inconsistencies between sales, inventories, consumption, and profits. The recovery of the real economy in China is happening, but it is not dissimilar to that of many of the leading Asian countries.

  • Offshore Cash Piles Into New Index For China's Opaque Corporate Bond Market
    Offshore Cash Piles Into New Index For China's Opaque Corporate Bond Market

    Tyler Durden

    Tue, 11/17/2020 – 19:40

    See no evil, hear no evil…

    Perhaps that’s the investing motto of the cash piling into the new Bloomberg Barclays Liquid China Credit Index, an offshore index that aims to track “investment grade” corporate bonds in China, despite the opacity of the country’s credit market. 

    The index was launched last week, according to FT, and is “designed to track the liquid, tradable portion of onshore renminbi-denominated credit bonds.”

    Bloomberg has claimed that the index could help market participants “better understand” China’s credit market, which has virtually no ETFs or indices offshore that track its corporate bonds. 

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    Steve Berkley, chief executive of Bloomberg Index Services, said: “Investors and asset managers can use [the index in] numerous ways, including in product launches, derivative contracts and traditional benchmarking.”

    He continued: “With government and policy bank securities now fully phased into the Global Aggregate Index, the Liquid China Credit Index is an important step towards establishing broader transparency and accessibility into China’s credit markets”.

    Ji Zhuang, Asia-Pacific head of indices at Bloomberg said: “We have had global ETF issuers expressing interest in launching products tracking the China credit index, whether that is the LCC [index] or custom versions of the index, to suit their needs,”

    China’s credit market is somewhat of a black box. About 70% of all Chinese companies don’t have ratings from global rating agencies. Of the ones that do – like one domestically AAA- rated, state backed coal company that recently defaulted on its debt – the ratings don’t seem to mean much. 

    To try and offset the notoriously risky credit market, the Bloomberg product “selects bonds that have traded on at least 10 per cent of the business days over the past three months and have at least Rmb250m ($37.8m) in aggregate trading volume over that period.”

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    The index contained 125 securities from 48 government and corporate issuers, as of October 30. The average yield of products in the index was 3.4% and the average duration was 1.9 years.

    Jian Hu, senior managing director of fixed income at Guangzhou-based E Fund Management, told FT: “From our conversations with offshore investors, most of them have not yet been convinced to invest in China credit bonds.” 

    Despite this, in the first 9 months of 2020, offshore holdings of Chinese onshore bonds are up 38% from the end of 2019.

    “Signs are positive that we are seeing, for example, international managers setting up local credit funds operations, which will help drive the activity and liquidity of this market,” he concluded.

  • Wayne County Board Breaks Deadlock, Votes Unanimously To Certify Election Results While Demanding Audit
    Wayne County Board Breaks Deadlock, Votes Unanimously To Certify Election Results While Demanding Audit

    Tyler Durden

    Tue, 11/17/2020 – 19:38

    Since 2020 wouldn’t be complete without officials flip-flopping during major elections, the Wayne County Board of Canvassers reversed has unanimously voted to certify the results of the November 3 election, hours after two Republicans on the board refused to do so.

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    The board has called on Michigan Secretary of State Jocelyn Benson to conduct an audit of irregularities in Wayne County.

    *  *  *

    Officials in Wayne County, Michigan – home to the city of Detroit, have refused to certify the results of the Nov. 3 election, after the Board of Canvassers have deadlocked in a 2-2 vote along party lines.

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    Wayne County Board of Canvassers Chair Monica Palmer (R, left) talks with Vice Chair Jonathan Kinloch before the board’s Nov. 17, 2020 meeting in Detroit (photo: Robin Buckson via The Detroit News)

    Both Republican members of the board refused to move forward amid discrepancies discovered in absentee ballot poll books – issues which were previously noted in the county’s summer primary and the November 2016 election, according to Just the News.

    During the meeting, Democrat member Jonathan Kinloch objected, saying “I smell politics at the core of this action,” adding “I smell the games.“

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    According to Michigan GOP Chair Laura Cox, “enough evidence of irregularities and potential voter fraud was uncovered” during the election to trigger the deadlock.

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    Here’s a rundown and some analysis from Robert J. DeNult of Duke Law (via Twitter): 

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    Continued…

    Michigan has a system where panels of citizens (2 D’s, 2 R’s) have to certify vote totals. Usually 4-0 approved. This year, R’s statewide discussed not approving them and splitting to a deadlock. This appears to be part of that effort in Wayne County.

    This county covers Detroit. The panel R’s said they would approve everywhere *but* Detroit, building strong case for an inherent racial discrimination claim in a future voting lawsuit. But this is extremely concerning. Counties that fail to certify send evidence to Secretary of State (a Dem) and State Board of Canvassers to certify. State Board similarly split (2 D’s, 2 R’s). In the end obstruction is unlikely to work. But it is a clear effort to deligitimize election and delay.

    A winner of Wayne County (Biden, or someone else who won an election there) may want to bring a state lawsuit about this. While it’s not clear there is a proper claim to make, a judge might ask the panel to give evidence of why it is suddenly deadlocked, or order them to certify.

    *  *  *

    And as The Detroit News notes, the lack of certification in Wayne County could extend the deadline for a possible recount – petitions for which are required to be filed with the county clerk within six days after the county canvassing board certifies the election.

    At the state level, recount petitions in the races for president, U.S. Senate, U.S. House and state House can be filed with the secretary of state within 48 hours after the State Board of Canvassers certifies the election results and adjourns. 

    The U.S. Constitution requests the states to certify their results by Dec. 8, which is known as the “safe harbor” day. Any state that doesn’t do so potentially invites Congress to get involved in resolving a dispute about which candidate won the state’s electoral votes. –The Detroit News

    Committee Chairwoman Monica Palmer (R) said that the refusal to certify the results was based on she and her GOP colleague’s belief “that we do not have complete and accurate information in those poll books.”

    The decision will move to the State Board of Canvassers next, which just tweeted that it has just moved a Wednesday meeting from 9 a.m. to 1:30 p.m.

     

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  • Trump Fires DHS Official Whose Agency Rebuffed Election Integrity Claims
    Trump Fires DHS Official Whose Agency Rebuffed Election Integrity Claims

    Tyler Durden

    Tue, 11/17/2020 – 19:24

    President Trump has fired a top DHS official whose agency has been publicly contradicting doubts over election integrity since at least October.

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    Chris Krebs, who ran the cyber arm of the Department of Homeland Security, was fired over ‘highly inaccurate’ statements regarding election fraud, according to a Tuesday evening tweet from the president.

    “The recent statement by Chris Krebs on the security of the 2020 Election was highly inaccurate, in that there were massive improprieties and fraud – including dead people voting, Poll Watchers not allowed into polling locations, “glitches” in the voting machines which changed votes from Trump to Biden, late voting, and many more,” he wrote, adding “Therefore, effective immediately, Chris Krebs has been terminated as Director of the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency.”

    On Saturday, Krebs called on the public to ignore “wild and baseless claims…even if they’re made by the president” regarding the election – while reportedly telling associates that he expected to be fired. 

    Krebs’ agency developed a “rumor control initiative” to, as the New York Times describes it “keep Americans from doubting the integrity of the election system.”

    In the West Wing, Mr. Krebs’s agency is regarded as a deep-state stronghold, an antagonist that has contradicted Mr. Trump’s false claims that fraud was rampant, software mistakes were vast and the election was stolen. It did not help that as Mr. Krebs gave speeches and interviews around the country about election security, he rarely, if ever, mentioned Mr. Trump’s name. –NYT

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  • What A Biden Victory Would Mean For Middle-East Oil
    What A Biden Victory Would Mean For Middle-East Oil

    Tyler Durden

    Tue, 11/17/2020 – 19:20

    Authored by Simon Watkins via OilPrice.com,

    Whilst media-annointed U.S. President-elect, Joe Biden, will almost certainly focus on dealing with the tail of the COVID-19 pandemic and repairing the economic damage to the U.S. that it has wrought, when he turns his attention to fully to shaping Washington’s policy in the Middle East it is likely to be significantly different to his predecessor’s in key policy areas.

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    Top of the list of his considerations are likely to be what to do about Iran, in particular the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) from which the U.S. unilaterally withdrew in May 2018, and Saudi Arabia, especially its Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman (MbS).  

    For Iran, although Biden is widely expected to bring the U.S. back into the JCPOA, OilPrice.com understands from sources close to the new Administration that a number of the key members of the team that negotiated the original JCPOA deal with Iran – which included virtually all of the tougher clauses that were then dropped by former President Barack Obama in his rush to sign the deal in 2015 – will be returning to the Biden negotiating team.

    It is vital to note that these clauses that were dropped by Obama were the very same clauses that were later laid out by then-Secretary of State Mike Pompeo after the U.S. withdrew from the deal in 2018 as being essential for any deal being made under Trump. These original, tougher clauses are going to form the basis of the Biden Administration’s renegotiation of the JCPOA with Iran and, unlike last time, both France and Germany are now behind the key clause of these that is designed to check Iran’s ballistic missile program, along with the E.U. formally as a whole.

    The core concepts that will form the basis of the renegotiation of the JCPOA by the Biden team are, OilPrice.com exclusively reveals, as follows:

    1. The safety and security of U.S. troops from Iran or Iran-sponsored attacks in Iraq and elsewhere;

    2. The safety and security of Israel; and,

    3. The inextricable link between Iran’s nuclear enrichment program and its ballistic missile program.

    In this last regard, Biden’s team is to make it absolutely clear – and there is no room for alteration on this point – that Iran is not to build, import, maintain, hold, or test any ballistic missiles with a range of more than 2,000 kilometres. This effectively precludes all ‘intermediate range’ ballistic missiles – that is, those with a range of between 3,000 and 5,500 km – including, crucially, the Hwasong-12 missiles that Iran is planning to get in from North Korea as part of the expanded military element of its 25-year deal with China, as exclusively revealed by OilPrice.com.

    These core concepts will run through each of the specific clauses with which the Biden JCPOA team will begin negotiations and these will include the following, OilPrice.com understands from people close to proceedings:

    1. Declare to the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) a full account of the prior military dimensions of its nuclear programme and permanently and verifiably abandon such work in perpetuity;

    2. Stop enrichment and never pursue plutonium reprocessing, including closing its heavy water reactor;

    3. Provide the IAEA with unqualified access to all sites throughout the entire country;

    4. End its proliferation of ballistic missiles and halt further launching or development of nuclear-capable missile systems;

    5. Release all U.S. citizens as well as citizens of U.S. partners and allies;

    6. End support to Middle East terrorist groups, including – but not limited to – Hezbollah, Hamas, and Islamic Jihad;

    7. Respect the sovereignty of the Iraqi government and permit the disarming, demobilisation and reintegration of Shia militias;

    8. End its military support for the Houthi rebels and work towards a final peaceful, political settlement in Yemen;

    9. Withdraw all forces under Iran’s command throughout the entirety of Syria;

    10. End support for the Taliban and other terrorist groups in Afghanistan and the region;

    11. End the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps-linked Quds Force’s support for terrorists and militant partners around the world; and,

    12. End its threatening behaviour against its neighbours, including its threats to destroy Israel and its firing of missiles at Saudi Arabia and the UAE, and threats to international shipping and destructive cyberattacks. 

    For its part, according to senior Iranian sources close to the Petroleum Ministry spoken to exclusively by OilPrice.com last week, Tehran’s negotiators will start with the following conditions:

    1. Compensation by the U.S. for the damage done by sanctions to its economy;

    2. Immediate access to all of Iran’s frozen deposits in Europe, the Far East and everywhere else;

    3. Guarantees that Israel does not continue to increase its intelligence and military presence in the region to threaten the security of Iran; and

    4. Recognition of the national security interests of Iran including not discussing anything to do with the 25-year China deal. 

    Clearly, Mehrdad Emadi, head of the international risk analysis company, Betamatrix, in London, exclusively told OilPrice.com last week, the U.S. is unlikely to agree to any of these four conditions but will likely be willing to allow Iran not to lose face entirely in the negotiations, so will allow it the following:

    1. Access – from non-U.S.-sanctioned suppliers – to equipment relating to civilian aircraft;

    2. Access – from non-U.S.-sanctioned suppliers – to medicines and medical equipment;

    3. Access – from non-U.S.-sanctioned suppliers – to technology needed to upgrade its oil and gas and petrochemicals sectors; and

    4. Allow U.S.-monitored access to some of its frozen deposits but subject to Iran’s full agreement on Financial Action Task Force conditions on transparency.

    For Saudi Arabia, Biden’s starting point was made clear in broad terms on 2 October when he said that he would seek to:

    “…reassess our relationship with the Kingdom [of Saudi Arabia], end U..S support for Saudi Arabia’s war in Yemen, and make sure America does not check its values at the door to sell arms or buy oil.”

    With regard to MbS, during the same speech – which marked the second anniversary of the murder of expatriate Saudi journalist, Jamal Khashoggi, which according even to the CIA was carried out on the personal orders of the Crown Prince – Biden appeared to endorse the CIA’s findings. He said:

    “Two years ago, Saudi operatives, reportedly acting at the direction of Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, murdered and dismembered Saudi dissident, journalist, and U.S. resident Jamal Khashoggi,…His offense – for which he paid with his life – was criticising the policies of his government.”

    He added, in an extremely worrying twist for MbS personally:

    “Today, I join many brave Saudi women and men, activists, journalists, and the international community in mourning Khashoggi’s death and echoing his call for people everywhere to exercise their universal rights in freedom…America’s commitment to democratic values and human rights will be a priority, even with our closest security partners.” 

    For MbS, these comments come at a time when his second failed oil price war in less than five years has left the ruling Saud dynasty facing the greatest existential threat to its continued rule over the country since Ibn Saud first consolidated his Arabian conquests into the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia in 1932.

    Not only is the Kingdom economically crippled but also its core relationship with the U.S. is at its lowest ebb since it was established in 1945 between then-U.S. President, Franklin D. Roosevelt and the Saudi King at the time, Abdulaziz. Such anger was felt in Washington that the Saudis had yet again attempted to destroy, or at least disable, the U.S. shale oil industry in March this year, that even the pro-MbS former President Donald Trump felt compelled to personally call the Crown Prince on 2 April and tell him that if he did not end the oil price war them the U.S. would withdraw its military support for Saudi Arabia.

    Given these factors, MbS’s hold on power has never been more tenuous, particularly with other senior Saudis jostling for position in light of King Salman’s extremely poor health. Those looking to re-assert their claim to the throne – most notably Prince Mohammed bin Nayef, King Salman’s nephew and the former crown prince – are supported by those 500 or so highly-placed Saudis who were rounded up from 4 November 2017 and held captive in the Ritz-Carlton in Riyadh as part of MbS’s supposed crackdown on corruption. In reality it appeared to be more of a standard criminal shakedown in which those being held were told to hand over around US$800 billion of their assets to MbS’s grouping or else their lives would become a lot worse very quickly. The same tactic was used in 2020, with the same sort of people rounded up, including again Prince Mohammed bin Nayef, plus most notably as well Prince Ahmed bin Abdulaziz, one of three members of the Allegiance Council (the senior royal organisation that endorses the line of succession), who opposed MBS’s appointment as crown prince in place of his cousin bin Nayef in 2017.

  • "Crushing Response" Leading To War: Iran Responds To Report That Trump Mulled Attack
    "Crushing Response" Leading To War: Iran Responds To Report That Trump Mulled Attack

    Tyler Durden

    Tue, 11/17/2020 – 19:00

    An Iranian government spokesman on Tuesday issued an official response to a late Monday NY Times report that said Trump sought “options” from his generals and advisers on mounting a preemptive strike on Iran.

    Iran vowed a “crushing response” and military action in retaliation, according to the statement. “Any action against the Iranian nation would certainly face a crushing response,” spokesman Ali Rabiei said in televised remarks via state channels.

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    Via Arms Control Center

    Israeli Energy Minister Yuval Steinitz seized on the potential for Trump to degrade the Islamic Republic’s nuclear abilities with just weeks to go in his presidency, saying that “If I were the Iranians, I would not feel at ease,” according to remarks cited in Reuters.

    “It is very important that the Iranians know that if, indeed, they suddenly dash toward high levels of enrichment, in the direction of nuclear weaponry, they are liable to encounter the military might of the United States – and also, perhaps, of other countries,” Steinitz said in an interview on Israel’s Army Radio.

    Israel itself has lately signaled it could act on its own against Iran should Biden move to restore conditions of the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) nuclear deal, which Trump had pulled the US out of in May 2018. Tel Aviv has long maintained that Iran would secretly pursue nuclear weapons under cover of the deal. 

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    The New York Times report had noted that “Mr Trump asked his top national security aides what options were available and how to respond” – but that his top advisers argued against it, saying it would spiral into major war which would consume his last weeks in office. 

    The Iranians have been positively celebrating Biden’s victory as it means a likely softening of sanctions and potential restoration of terms of the JCPOA. 

  • SoftBank CEO Warns Of "Lehman-Like-Crisis" That Could Crash Global Economy 
    SoftBank CEO Warns Of "Lehman-Like-Crisis" That Could Crash Global Economy 

    Tyler Durden

    Tue, 11/17/2020 – 18:45

    Speaking at the New York Times’ DealBook Online Summit on Tuesday morning, SoftBank CEO Masa Son warns about the possibility of an impending “disaster” that could tank global markets in the coming months as the second wave of the virus pandemic intensifies. 

    Dealbook editor and CNBC host Andrew Ross Sorkin tells Son during the virtual conference that he’s usually the most optimistic investor in the room – though Son’s attitude appears to have drastically shifted in recent times, maybe due to SoftBank’s terrible performance after losing $3.7 billion after months of wild success in creating the most significant “gamma squeeze” on record which led to a massive late-August melt-up in FAAMG names. There’s also been news of an exodus of executives at Son’s investment fund called Vision Fund. 

    Sorkin asks Son to shed more color on what could trigger the “worst-case scenario” of an event crashing global markets. 

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    Son responds by saying even as the vaccines come – there could be “some major company” that could “crash” and produce a “domino effect” of financial turbulence around the world. 

    He said it could be “just one bank,” causing a “Lehman-like-crisis.” 

    He warns anything could happen in the coming months and believes things are getting somewhat better with the positive news of vaccine developments. But he cautioned that he’s “prepared for the worst-case scenario.” 

    Son’s warning comes as Nasdaq futures have stalled for nearly four months, a second coronavirus wave is ravaging the West, and double-dip recession fears are surging. 

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    Watch: Masa Son: We Want To Be Prepared For The Worst-Case Scenario

Digest powered by RSS Digest

Nov 17

Today’s News 17th November 2020

  • Whose World Order?
    Whose World Order?

    Tyler Durden

    Tue, 11/17/2020 – 00:00

    Authored by Matthew Ehret via The Saker blog,

    In his Foreign Policy article of April 2020, Biden states that he will reverse Trump’s embarrassing foreign policy record by standing up to both China, Russia and other totalitarian nations which represent the three-fold plague of “authoritarianism, nationalism and illiberalism” and “once more have America lead the world”.

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    Biden went further promising to undo the harm Trump has done to NATO by re-enforcing the military body, extending its influence to the Pacific (which sounds a lot like the Esper/Pompeo doctrine for the Pacific), and even demanded that NATO go harder on Russia stating that “the Kremlin fears a strong NATO, the most effective political military alliance in modern history.”

    Considering Biden’s nearly 45 year political record supporting every military intervention in American history, opposing de-segregation, eulogizing pro-KKK Senator Strom Thurmond, passing bills that incarcerated petty drug dealers for life on behalf of the cheap labor prison industrial complex and supported the rampant growth of both Wall Street, Big Pharma and the Big Tech run surveillance state, we should think twice before celebrating this man’s possible entry into the halls of the highest office in the USA.

    Biden’s call for renewing the NATO alliance in opposition to Russia and China, his support for reversing Trump’s calls for military reduction in the Middle East and his support for extending NATO in the Pacific mixed with his lifelong track record, forces us to ask if Glen Greenwald was right when he quit the Intercept on November 1 saying:

    “If Biden wins, that’s going to be the power structure: A democratic party fully united with neocons, Bush/Cheney operatives, CIA/FBI/NSA Wall Street and Silicon Valley: presenting itself as the only protection against fascism. And much of the left will continue marching behind it.”

    As it turns out, Greenwald’s warning was absolutely on point, as the entire intelligence apparatus, Big Tech and mainstream media complex which worked desperately to oust President Trump for 4 years and is currently running a vast voting fraud operation as this is written has given its full backing to the narrative of “an inevitable of a Biden presidency”.

    In a Nov. 11 article from Antiwar.com entitled Biden’s Pentagon Transition Team Members Funded by the Arms Industry, journalist Dave DeCamp demonstrates that of the 23 members of Biden’s Pentagon Transition Team, over one third are directly tied to NATO and the Military Industrial Complex.

    As facts continue to emerge of the corrupt deep state structure which totally dominates the geriatric hologram known as Joe Biden, it has become obvious that even the few positive remarks Biden made in support of renewing the START treaty with Russia carry little weight.

    Ignoring the very real danger of a new civil war due to the fact that either result will be denied its legitimacy by half of the nation, the question must be asked: If Trump is replaced by a Biden Presidency on January 20th, then what will be the effects both on world stability and US-Russia-China relations?

    It is good that Biden supports START’s renewal, but an increasing majority of the nations are opting for a multipolar alliance premised on the defense of national sovereignty, the right to use protectionism, and the construction of large scale megaprojects such as the New Silk Road, Polar Silk Road, advanced space exploration and North South Transportation Corridor.

    The very protectionist measures which allowed the USA (and every nation of the world for that matter) to build up their industrial base and economic sovereignty are attacked directly by Biden who demands the “taking down of trade barriers and resisting dangerous global slide toward protectionism” (which he goes so far as to assert without evidence “caused the great depression” and “lead to World War II”).

    Attacking Trump for being soft on China’s imperial Belt and Road Initiative which Biden states is only an “outsourcer of pollution to other countries by financing billions of dollars worth of dirty fossil fuel energy projects”, Biden then asks: “who writes the rules that govern trade?” and answers: “the United States, not China, should be leading that effort.”

    Beyond carbon reduction plans, and information technology investments (AI, 5G, Quantum Computing), there is very little in Biden’s “development outlook” that brings the USA into harmony with this multipolar consensus. His program to support cutting America’s carbon emissions to net zero by 2050 as outlined by the Green New Deal and Great Reset crowd at Davos might appear on the surface to be pro-infrastructure, professing to “create 10 million good new jobs”, but the reality on further inspection is very different.

    The sorts of large scale BRI-oriented development projects now transforming more than half of the world which is increasingly operating under a completely different non-US dominated banking paradigm, are based on capital intensive heavy industry, the use of fossil fuels and also nuclear power.

    Without these energy sources, then the New Silk Road and its’ sister projects could never work (much like Modi’s anti-BRI OSOWOG doppelganger has proven a total failure both scientifically and economically).

    The sort of “green energy revolution” which the Davos technocrats running Biden want to impose onto the world might create short term jobs, but once the solar panels and windmills are built, the quality of energy available to nations stupid enough to walk into this cage will forever suffocate their capacity to sustain their populations and growth potential. In short, it is a green mirage obscuring a very ugly design.

    In opposition to this depopulation agenda, Trump’s tendency support for space exploration, reviving protectionism to rebuild America’s lost manufacturing and his supporting large scale infrastructure programs in resolving conflict abroad (including his support for building rail in the Arctic, rail in Serbia and Kosovo, nuclear power in South Africa and Poland etc) is certainly synergistic with the multipolar system led by Russia and China and undeniably brings the USA into harmony with its own better traditions.

    Additionally, Trump’s defunding of color revolutionary “civil society” groups in Hong Kong and Belarus won him many enemies from both sides of the pro-Soros isle while supporting the concept of national sovereignty which were major steps towards stability and trust-building with nations of the world who demand their sovereignty be respected as outlined in the UN Charter itself.

    Compare this with Biden’s statement that we must “stand with Russian civil society which has bravely stood up time and again against President Vladimir Putin’s kleptocratic authoritarian system” and Biden’s call to host “a global summit for democracy” featuring “civil society organizations from around the world that stand on the frontlines of democracy” including “the private sector, technology companies and social media giants.”

    These are the same “Big tech, and media giants” that have given their full backing to the imposition of Biden into the Presidency which have also been used to overthrow nationally elected governments in color revolutionary regime change operations for decades. These the same networks that have suppressed all evidence of systemic vote fraud in the American elections of 2020 and are stoking the fires of a potential new civil war and regime change inside the republic itself.

    Whatever the case may be, the coming weeks and months will feature fierce battles that will shape the outcome of world history.

  • Tesla's Supercharger Network In Australia Officially Costs More Than Filling Your Car With Gas
    Tesla's Supercharger Network In Australia Officially Costs More Than Filling Your Car With Gas

    Tyler Durden

    Mon, 11/16/2020 – 23:40

    Using the Tesla Supercharger network, it is now costlier to recharge your vehicle than it is to gas up at a traditional gas station, according to a new report from Australia-based WhichCar.

    The news came as a result of a “recent price increase” to use the Superchargers and – stop us if you’ve heard this one – “incorrect fuel figures on the Tesla website”. 

    This, of course, puts an end to Tesla’s years long claims that recharging its vehicles offered savings versus traditional internal combustion engine vehicles. 

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    “According to Tesla the cost of charging a Tesla Model 3 is $7 per 100km compared with $12 for a rival petrol car,” WhichCar notes, before revealing the estimate uses “at least three incorrect figures”. The report disputes “how much electricity a Tesla Model 3 uses, the cost of electricity at a Tesla Supercharger and the price of petrol.”

    It also notes Tesla’s increase for its Supercharger to 52 cents per kilowatt-hour. The article calculates this recharging “even the most efficient” Model 3 Standard Range would cost $9.78 per 100km using a Supercharger.

    It then notes that BMW’s 330i costs $8 per 100km to fuel, assuming the country’s average cost of premium unleaded at $1.38 – a figure sourced from the country’s government. The BMW consumes 5.8 litres per 100km, which is below Tesla’s estimates of 7.0 litres per 100km. This means the BMW is actually 18% cheaper to fuel than a Tesla is to recharge at a Supercharger. 

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    And if one were to run the same calculations with the hybrid-powered Lexus IS300h, the results are even more profound. The Lexus cost winds up about 31% lower than the Tesla charged using a Supercharger. 

    Recall, Tesla first used its Supercharger network, promising “free” electricity and charging, to lure customers into the idea of an all electric future when the company first surfaced. Gradually, the allure of the idea wore off for the company and they began charging for use of the network. 

    Like many other promises made by Tesla (solar roof tiles, 1 million robotaxis, full self driving), the concept of the Supercharger network looks like it has just run face first into a much needed reality check. 

  • Everybody Knows The Fight Was Fixed
    Everybody Knows The Fight Was Fixed

    Tyler Durden

    Mon, 11/16/2020 – 23:20

    Authored by Edward Curtin via Off-Guardian.org,

    “Yeah, like [in] a church. Church of the Good Hustler.”

    – Fast Eddie Felson (Paul Newman) in The Hustler

    At the end of Henrik Ibsen’s classic play, A Doll’s House, Nora, the aggrieved wife, leaves her husband’s house and all the illusions that sustained its marriage of lies. She chooses freedom over fantasy.  She will no longer be played with like a doll but will try to become a free woman – a singular one.

    “There is another task I must undertake first. I must try and educate myself,” she tells her husband Torvald, a man completely incapable of understanding the social programming that has made him society’s slave.

    When Nora closes the doll’s house door behind her, the sound is like a hammer blow of freedom. For anyone who has seen the play, even when knowing the outcome in advance, that sound is profound. It keeps echoing. It interrogates one’s conscience.

    The echo asks: Do you live inside America’s doll house where a vast tapestry of lies, bad faith, and cheap grace keep you caged in comfort, as you repeat the habits that have been drilled into you?

    In this doll’s house of propaganda into which America has been converted, a great many of our basic assumptions are totally illusory.

    Americans who voted for either Trump or Biden in the 2020 election are like Torvald clones.  They refuse to open that door so they might close it behind them. 

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    They live in the doll’s house – all 146+ million of them. Like Torvald, they are comforted. They are programmed and propagandized, embracing the illusion that the electoral system is not structured and controlled to make sure no significant change can occur, no matter who is president. It is a sad reality promoted as democracy.

    They will prattle on and give all sorts of reasons why they voted, and for whom, and how if you don’t vote you have no right to bitch, and how it’s this sacred right to vote that makes democracy great, blah blah blah. It’s all sheer nonsense. For the U.S.A. is not a democracy; it is an oligarchy run by the wealthy for the wealthy.

    This is not a big secret.  Everybody knows this is true; knows the electoral system is sheer show-business with the presidential extravaganza drawing the big money from corporate lobbyists, investment bankers, credit card companies, lawyers, business and hedge fund executives, Silicon Valley honchos, think tanks, Wall Street gamblers, millionaires, billionaires, et. al.  Biden and Trump spent over 3 billion dollars on the election. They are owned by the money people.

    Both are old men with long, shameful  histories. A quick inquiry will show how the rich have profited immensely from their tenures in office.  There is not one hint that they could change and have a miraculous conversion while in future office, like JFK.  Neither has the guts or the intelligence.  They are nowhere men who fear the fate that John Kennedy faced squarely when he turned against the CIA and the war machine.  They join the craven company of Johnson, Ford, Carter, Reagan G.H.W. Bush, Clinton, George W. Bush, and Obama.  They all got the message that was sent from the streets of Dallas in 1963: You don’t want to die, do you?

    Ask yourself: Has the power of the oligarchic, permanent warfare state with its propaganda and spy networks, its vast intelligence apparatus, increased or decreased in the past half century? Who is winning the battle, the people or the ruling elites? The answer is obvious.

    It matters not at all whether the president has been Trump or Bill Clinton, Ronald Reagan or George W. Bush, Barack Obama or George H. W. Bush, Richard Nixon, Gerald Ford, or Jimmy Carter. The power of the national security state has grown under them all and everyone is left to moan and groan and wonder why.

    All the while, the doll’s house has become more and more sophisticated and powerful. It is now essentially an electronic prison that is being “Built Back Better.” The new Cold War now being waged against Russia and China is a bi-partisan affair, as is the confidence game played by the secret government intended to create a fractured consciousness in the population through their corporate mass-media stenographers. Trump and his followers on one side of the coin; liberal Democrats on the other.

    Only those backed by the wealthy power brokers get elected in the U.S.A. Then when elected, it’s payback time.  Palms are greased.  Everybody knows this is true. It’s called corruption.  So why would anyone, who opposes a corrupt political oligarchy, vote, unless they were casting a vote of conscience for a doomed third-party candidate?

    Leonard Cohen told it true with “Everybody Knows”:

    Everybody knows that the dice are loaded
    Everybody rolls with their fingers crossed
    Everybody knows that the war is over
    Everybody knows the good guys lost
    Everybody knows the fight was fixed
    The poor stay poor, the rich get rich
    That’s how it goes
    Everybody knows
    Everybody knows that the boat is leaking
    Everybody knows that the captain lied
    Everybody got this broken feeling
    Like their father or their dog just died

    And yet everybody who voted for the two men backed by the super-rich owners of the country knew what they were doing, unless they live under a rock and come out every four years to vote.  Perhaps they were out buying stuffing for the Thanksgiving turkey, so they can give thanks for the farce (stuffing: Latin: farcire ).

    They have their reasons.  Now the Biden people celebrate, just as Trump’s supporters did in 2016.  I can hear fireworks going off as I write here in a town where 90% + voted for Biden and hate Trump with a passion more intense than what they ever could work up for a spurned lover or spouse.  This is mass psychosis. It’s almost funny.

    At least we have gotten rid of Trump, they say.  No one can be worse. They think this is logic. Like Torvald, they cannot begin to understand why anyone would want to leave the doll’s house, how anyone could refuse to play a game in which the dice are loaded. They will deny they are in the doll’s house while knowing the dice are loaded and still roll the die, not caring that their choice – whether it’s Tweedledee or Tweedledum – will result in the death and impoverishment of so many, that being the end result of oligarchic rule at home and imperialism abroad.

    Orwell called this Doublethink:

    Doublethink means the power of holding two contradictory beliefs in one’s mind simultaneously, and accepting both of them…. To tell deliberate lies while genuinely believing in them, to forget any fact that has become inconvenient, and then, when it becomes necessary again, to draw it back from oblivion for just so long as it is needed, to deny the existence of objective reality and all the while to take account of the reality which one denies – all this is indispensably necessary.

    And while in Nineteen Eighty-Four Doublethink is learned by all the Party members “and certainly by all who are intelligent as well as orthodox,” today in the USA, it has been mastered even by the so-called unintelligent.

    To live in the USA is to live in the Church of the Good Hustler.

    People often ask: What can we do to make the country better?  What is your alternative?

    A child could answer that one: Don’t vote if you know that both contenders are backed by the super-rich elites, what some call the Deep State.  Which of course they are. Everybody knows.

    The so-called left and right argue constantly about whom to support.  It’s a pseudo-debate constructed to allow people to think their vote counts; that the game isn’t rigged. It’s hammered into kids’ heads from an early age. Be grateful, give thanks that you live in a democracy where voting is allowed and your choice is as important as a billionaire’s such as Bill Gates, Jeff Bezos, or Charles Koch. In the voting booth we are all equal.

    Myths die hard. This one never does:

    Your voice, your hopes, and your dreams, will define our American destiny. And your courage and goodness and love will forever guide us along the way.”

    — Donald Trump, January 20, 2017

    With the campaign over, it’s time to put the anger and the harsh rhetoric behind us and come together as a nation. It’s time for America to unite. And to heal.”

    — Joe Biden, November 7, 2020

    Above all else, the time has come for us to renew our faith in ourselves and in America.  In recent years, that faith has been challenged.”

    — Richard Nixon, January 20, 1973

    Your voice – our faith – it’s time to unite and heal.

    Ask the Vietnamese, the Iraqis, the Syrians, the Afghanis, the Libyans, the Palestinians, et al.  They sing a different tune, one not heard In the Church of the Good Hustler.

    After campaigning hard for the losing presidential candidate in 1972, I nearly choked when I heard Richard Nixon’s inaugural address in January 1973. Clinging to the American myth the previous year, I had campaigned for a genuine anti-war Democrat, Senator George McGovern.

    The war against Vietnam was still raging and Nixon, who had been first elected in 1968 as a “peace candidate,” succeeding the previous “peace candidate” Lyndon Baines Johnson, was nevertheless overwhelmingly elected, despite Watergate allegations appearing in the months preceding the election.  Nixon won forty-nine states to McGovern’s one – Massachusetts, where I lived. 

    It was a landslide. I felt sick, woke up, got up, and left the doll’s house.

    “Propaganda is the true remedy for loneliness,” wrote the French sociologist Jacques Ellul in 1965 in Propaganda:

    It corresponds to the need to share, to be a member of a community, to lose oneself in a group, to embrace a collective ideology that will end loneliness…. It also corresponds to deep and constant needs, more developed today, perhaps, than ever before: the need to believe and obey, to create and hear fables, to communicate in the language of myths.

    In a country where loneliness is widespread, the will to believe and the power of positive thinking are far more powerful than the will to truth.  Unlike Nora, who knew that when she left the doll’s house she was choosing the loneliness of the solitary soul, Americans prefer myths that induce them to act out of habit so they can lose themselves in the group.

    This is so despite the fact that In the Church of the Good Hustler, when you play the game, you lose.  We are all Americans and your vote counts and George Washington never told a lie.

  • Israel In Talks To Buy Russia's COVID Vaccine
    Israel In Talks To Buy Russia's COVID Vaccine

    Tyler Durden

    Mon, 11/16/2020 – 23:00

    In the United States and the West broadly all eyes are on the Moderna and Pfizer coronavirus vaccines, as well as planning for the “logistical nightmare” of mass distribution to the population once fully proven effective. Hours after Moderna on Monday hailed its vaccine as nearly 95% effective the WHO in a press conference said the trial results are “encouraging”.

    However, what’s being given far less attention yet is a potentially much more important geopolitical development, is that after the claimed effectiveness of Russia’s Sputnik V vaccine, which interim trial results showed to be 92% effective (announced last week), Israel is in talks with the Russian government to possibly buy the vaccine. 

    On Monday afternoon (local time) Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu told reporters: “About an hour ago I spoke with Russian President Vladmir Putin regarding the possibility of purchasing an option on the vaccine Sputnik-V.” 

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    Image source: Russian Healthcare ministry

    Netanyahu added that “We will discuss this in the coming days” in reference to Israeli access to Sputnik V. Netanyahu is also speaking with with American multinational Pfizer in what appears an effort to cast as wide a net as possible for Israel’s large-scale vaccine procurement. 

    “My goal is to bring as many vaccines from as many sources to as many citizens, as quickly as possible,” Netanyahu said Monday after talking to Putin.

    Last week Netanyahu described of talks with Pfizer chairman and CEO Albert Bourla, “I am constantly working to bring vaccines to Israel… The entire world wants to receive its drugs. We are conducting negotiations with them.”

    And further The Jerusalem Post reports:

    Hadassah-University Medical Center has already signed a memorandum of understanding with the country’s sovereign wealth fund, Russian Direct Investment Fund, and the Gamaleya Research Institute of Epidemiology, who are collaborating on the production of the vaccine, according to Hadassah head Prof. Zeev Rotstein.

    He told The Jerusalem Post that the hospital had submitted the dossier to the Health Ministry to register the vaccine and has signed an MOU for 1.5 million doses of the vaccine candidate.

    This doesn’t necessarily mean any decision has been made for large-scale purchase of the Russian vaccine, but pilot programs for presumably multiple vaccines are being readied. 

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    According to further explanation from the Hadassah-University Medical Center director:

    “We know that the chances of Israel enjoying vaccines from different countries are unclear,” Rotstein said. “Different governments could decide to vaccinate their people first and only then send vaccines to other countries. We came to the agency early so we could get on the list.”

    This comes after Russia has faced months of criticism that its vaccine was being “rushed” amid broader accusations and suspicions when it comes to Russian technology and science.

    Russia has lately touted that “The Pfizer vaccine requires storage at minus 70 degrees, whereas Sputnik V can be maintained at minus 18 degrees, making it easier to store and distribute,” according to Sky News.

    UK and US reports have further described the international race to be the first country to deliver an effective and safe COVID-19 vaccine as a ‘medical Cold War’ of sorts.

  • Huck Finn, To Kill A Mockingbird, Other Classic Books Banned In California Schools For "Racism"
    Huck Finn, To Kill A Mockingbird, Other Classic Books Banned In California Schools For "Racism"

    Tyler Durden

    Mon, 11/16/2020 – 22:40

    Authored by Matt Agorist via The Free Thought Project,

    When Gutenberg introduced the printing press in 1440, the world had no idea that things were about to drastically change. Prior to the release and production of the printing press, books were incredibly expensive, rare, mostly written in Latin, and reserved for royalty and clergy.

    The spread of information was kept under lock and key.

    However, in just a few decades after its spread throughout the world, Gutenberg’s press had rolled out hundreds of millions of books. The operation of a printing press became synonymous with the enterprise of printing and lent its name to a new branch of media, the press.

    The world was becoming informed.

    Hailed as one of the most important inventions in human history, the printing press helped societies break free from the ignorance and bondage imposed upon them by the keepers of information. Over the next 400 years, those with access to information about peace and freedom began to rise up against their oppressors. Instead of monarchies and dictatorships, republics and democracies were born.

    The world was well on its way to becoming a Land of the Free. Unfortunately, however, with information — comes propaganda and censorship.

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    Not being able to control the dissemination of information, tyrants decided to control the actual information instead. Certain books were burned, banned, and shunned. Only establishment-supporting nationalistic books were promoted which led to entire societies believing their patriotic stories about how their countries ‘played the key role in the development of the modern world’ — up to and including societies like Nazi Germany who were convinced that murdering millions of Jews was the right thing to do.

    For decades, the world was tricked by slick establishment propagandists, who wrote their version of heroic history. Tyrants were painted as saviors; mass murderers hailed as great discoverers. The world was slipping back into a dark age of control and manipulation.

    Luckily, there were a few voices who resisted mass censorship, the book banners and burners, and the last century has seen incredible growth and freedom of speech. But, like all empires inevitably do, America is increasingly slipping into despotism and, once again, the alleged “arbiters of truth” are attempting to silence information with which they disagree.

    One example of this new “book burning” is taking place in California. Schools in Burbank, California have banned multiple books after a handful of parents expressed concern over them. To be clear, these books do not advocate racism, violence, hatred, or anything of the sort. These books have won multiple awards and have achieved literary godliness.

    Burbank schools are now being forced to teach other titles because a small group (exactly 4) of offended parents have succeeded in depriving thousands of other children from reading Harper Lee’s To Kill a Mockingbird, Mark Twain’s The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, John Steinbeck’s Of Mice and Men, Theodore Taylor’s The Cay and Mildred D. Taylor’s Roll of Thunder, Hear My Cry.

    That’s right, Roll of Thunder, Hear My Cry — that was written by a black woman about racism in America during the Jim Crow era — was banned because it is supposedly racist. Someone should probably ask Newbery Award-winning author, Mildred DeLois Taylor, how she feels about her book, written about her own life experiences, getting banned for being racist.

    To be fair, the parents said their children experienced racism in schools which is unacceptable — but also exceedingly improbable that this racism was derived from a child reading a novel.

    As Newsweek reports, Carmenita Helligar said her daughter, Destiny, was approached by a white student in math class using a racial taunt including the N-word, which he’d learned from reading Roll of Thunder, Hear My Cry while both attended the David Starr Jordan Middle School.

    “My family used to own your family and now I want a dollar from each of you for the week,” another boy is said to have told Destiny.

    “My daughter was literally traumatized,” Helligar said.

    “These books are problematic … you feel helpless because you can’t even protect your child from the hurt that she’s going through.”

    While no one wants their child to experience the horrific scenario described above, the idea of a classic book — that is actually anti-racist — turning a child into a racist is absolutely absurd. If someone is so hateful that they are willing to say this to a child in middle school, blaming a book is asinine. This kid was either brought up as a racist or, he made a tone deaf, disgusting attempt at teasing.

    Either way, it doesn’t matter what actually transpired as the results are the same — books are banned in the land of the free. Sadly, it is indeed likely that those calling for banning these books, have never even read them. If they did actually read them, they would understand that they are not at all racist and, in fact, inspire kids to do the right thing, well, because it’s the right thing.

    Luckily, the banning of these books did not go unnoticed and the National Coalition Against Censorship (NCAC) sent a letter to BUSD urging the district to allow teaching of the books while the challenges are under review.

    “[W]e believe that the books… have a great pedagogical value and should be retained in the curriculum,” read the letter from the NCAC.

    Some of the children are speaking out against the banned books as well. Sungjoo Yoon, 15, a sophomore at Burbank High School, also launched an online petition on Change.org to stop what he called a “ban on antiracist books.”

    “In a time where racism has become more transparent than ever, we need to continue to educate students as to the roots of it; to create anti-racist students,” Yoon wrote. “These literatures, of which have been declared ‘Books that Shaped America’ by the Library of Congress, won Newbury Medals, and are some of the most influential pieces, cannot disappear.”

    PEN America (an acronym for Poets, Essayists, Novelists) also released a petition calling to reinstate the banned books.

    “Each of the books in question deal with difficult subject matter from our country’s complicated and painful history, including systemic racism,” an excerpt from the petition reads.

    “Blocking engagement with these important books is also avoiding the important role that schools can and should play in providing context for why these books inspire and challenge us still today.”

  • This Is What Hedge Funds Bought And Sold In Q3: Complete 13F Summary
    This Is What Hedge Funds Bought And Sold In Q3: Complete 13F Summary

    Tyler Durden

    Mon, 11/16/2020 – 22:20

    While we live in a time when the holdings of the top 20 Robinhood “investors” have far more information value for markets and other traders than a glimpse into what hedge funds are doing, not in the least because retail investors are outperforming both the S&P500 and hedge funds 10-to-1…

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    … unfortunately there is still no regulatory requirement for even superstar retail investors to disclose their holdings, which is why we have to be satisfied with the quarterly 13-F publication spectacle, which just concluded today, and which revealed that even as tech stocks suffered two correction shakeouts since early September, hedge funds mostly stuck with the “safety” of tech stocks during the third quarter heading into the election, even as some hedge funds trimmed Amazon.com as the dominant e-commerce platform thrived amid a pandemic-fueled surge in online shopping, while others sold Netflix

    Courtesy of Bloomberg, below is a snapshot of what some of the most prominent tech stock additions as disclosed by today’s barrage of 13F filings:

    • Coatue Management doubled its holdings of Tesla in the three months ended Sept. 30, making the electric-vehicle maker its second-biggest publicly disclosed holding. Assuming the fund held on, the bet proved prescient with the stock soaring in late trading Monday after it was announced that Tesla will enter the S&P 500 next month.
    • Gabe Plotkin’s Melvin Capital Management bought an additional 2.5 million shares of Expedia Group Inc, while Stephen Mandel’s Lone Pine Capital added stay-at-home play DocuSign Inc. and snapped up more shares of Shopify Inc., Facebook Inc., Microsoft Corp. and Netflix Inc.
    • D1 Capital and Soroban Capital Partners were among funds that increased their holdings in Microsoft.
    • One recent initial public offering that received a lot of attention from hedge funds was Snowflake Inc. The software company was a top new buy for Berkshire, D1 Capital and Temasek Holdings.

    Not everyone added to their tech holdings, with some selling although it was not clear if funds that trimmed tech stocks did so because they’ve soured on the investments or if its part of a portfolio exposure plan to manage risk associated with soaring stocks.

    • Dan Sundheim’s D1 Capital cut its stake in Netflix by 89% in the third quarter, selling more than 951,000 shares. That’s surprising given Sundheim has long held bullish views of the online-streaming service and last year said the stock could reach $1,000. So far, this has been a prescient move, with Netflix dropping 4.2% in the fourth quarter, as work from home stocks were hammered following vaccine news.
    • Lone Pine trimmed holdings in Amazon.com Inc. and Zoom and pared its stake in Salesforce.com. Fellow Tiger-cubs Maverick, Viking and Tiger also trimmed their Salesforce holdings. David Tepper’s Appaloosa Management, Viking and D1 either reduced or liquidated their Amazon stakes.
    • Work from home winner Netflix Inc. was trimmed by several funds, including Stanley Druckenmiller’s Duquesne Family Office, Appaloosa and Corvex Management, while Melvin Capital Management exited its stake.
    • Maverick Capital boosted its exposure to tech by more than 9% in the third quarter. In the last quarter upped its stake in semiconductor equipment company LAM Research Corp. and business-payments company FleetCor Technologies Inc. Even though it sold some Facebook Inc. shares, the tech giant is still Maverick’s biggest U.S. long holding.
    • As noted earlier, Berkshire Hathaway continued its trend of pulling back on certain financial bets in the quarter, cutting its Wells Fargo stake and JPMorgan Chase & Co. bet. The company also trimmed holdings in PNC and M&T Bank.
    • Saudi Arabia’s sovereign wealth fund retrenched from its big jump into U.S.-traded stocks battered by the pandemic. The Riyadh-based Public Investment Fund cut its U.S. holdings to $7.0 billion from $10.1 billion during the third quarter, mainly by selling stakes in exchange-traded funds that track the real estate and materials sectors. That left a $2.7 billion stake in Uber Technologies Inc. as its largest U.S. traded holding.

    Finally, a quick look at what some of the marquee hedge funds bought and sold in Q3:

    ADAGE CAPITAL PARTNERS

    • Top new buys: BMY, LSPD, SAGE, PH, OXY, TWTR, RKT, WEC, ANNX, CMI
    • Top exits: PFE, CCK, TM, GRA, HSC, ATR, WM, SIRI, VMC, PCG
    • Boosted stakes in: AMZN, JNJ, ST, BRK/B, HZNP, UPS, UAA, HON, DHR, TXN
    • Cut stakes in: OTIS, ROST, CSCO, BAC, RTX, C, FIVE, ITT, FCX, BMRN

    APPALOOSA

    • Top exits: AVGO, QCOM, VST, TSLA, HUM
    • Boosted stakes in: PCG, MU, MSFT, ET
    • Cut stakes in: AMZN, T, GOOG, BABA, FB, NFLX, PYPL, WFC, V, MO

    BALYASNY ASSET MANAGEMENT

    • Top new buys: LULU, BAC, GOOGL, TJX, SNX, ROP, CARR, VAR, TMUS, XOM
    • Top exits: JPM, FLT, NSC, C, NKE, AZN, SAIC, TWLO, LSTR, CTLT
    • Boosted stakes in: MCD, CTSH, MDT, SWKS, WAT, CMCSA, RTX, TWTR, AJG, MSI
    • Cut stakes in: FISV, QGEN, LITE, NXPI, QRVO, ITW, DKS, GM, LHX, HOLX

    BAUPOST GROUP

    • Top new buys: PSTH, MU, AMAT, PEAK, HWM
    • Top exits: AKBA, HCA, ABC, UNVR, VTR
    • Boosted stakes in: PCG, SSNC, VRNT, HDS, VSAT
    • Cut stakes in: EBAY, GOOG, TBPH, HPQ, FB, VIST, CLNY, FOXA, QRVO

    BERKSHIRE HATHAWAY

    • Top new buys: ABBV, MRK, BMY, SNOW, TMUS, PFE
    • Top exits: COST
    • Boosted stakes in: BAC, GM, KR, LILAK
    • Cut stakes in: WFC, JPM, PNC, GOLD, MTB, LBTYA, AXTA, DVA, AAPL

    BRIDGEWATER ASSOCIATES

    • Top new buys: WMT, PG, KO, JNJ, PEP, MCD, ABT, MDLZ, EL, DHR
    • Top exits: INDA, LMT, PM, FIS, MO, CI, FISV, ADP, AMT, TMUS
    • Boosted stakes in: BABA, EEM, VWO, IEMG, COST, SBUX, JD, TGT, NIO, DG
    • Cut stakes in: IVV, SPY, FXI, MCHI, EWY, EWZ, LOW, HD, SHW, SINA

    COATUE MANAGEMENT

    • Top new buys: SNOW, RUN, Z, NUAN, LB, ZG, GPS, DECK, AEO, URBN
    • Top exits: BA, HWM, SFIX, NOW, TDG, BBBY, TWTR, SKT, HD, AAP
    • Boosted stakes in: TSLA, GPN, SQ, PLAN, UBER, SHOP, FB, DIS, DOCU, NFLX
    • Cut stakes in: LBRDK, DXCM, SMAR, OKTA, MU, GH, DDD, SRNE, SDC, LRCX

    CORSAIR CAPITAL MANAGEMENT

    • Top new buys: PSTH, ECPG, BERY, CCK, APG, PCG, GSAH, MS, LKQ, GVA
    • Top exits: IWO, REPH, HGV, IWM, SMIT, GSL
    • Boosted stakes in: VRT, GDDY, NATR
    • Cut stakes in: QQQ, BXRX, PRSP, VOYA, PLYA, CHNG, STAR, HMHC, C, WMB

    CORVEX MANAGEMENT

    • Top new buys: ILMN, FE, ACM, TWTR, DIS, ZEN, HCA, NAV, FIVE
    • Top exits: IAA, CNC, TIF, FLMN, CZR
    • Boosted stakes in: EXC, BABA, ATVI, CNP, ATUS, CMCSA, HUM, LYV, EVRG
    • Cut stakes in: MSGS, AMZN, PCG, NFLX, ADBE, TMUS

    D1 CAPITAL PARTNERS

    • Top new buys: U, IR, BEKE, BLL, DT, SNOW, OM, GDRX, ADI, CD
    • Top exits: AMZN, AZO, FLT, BFAM, ESTC, TSM, SBUX, API, ALLO, HST
    • Boosted stakes in: CVNA, JD, MSFT, EXPE, GOOGL, PNC, LYV, FB, RH, JPM
    • Cut stakes in: BABA, NFLX, LVS, DHR, FIS, HLT, AVB, ORLY, PLAN, HPP

    DUQUESNE FAMILY OFFICE

    • Top new buys: NUAN, GDX, NEE, XLI, EXPE, CVNA, PANW, ADI, SNE, NET
    • Top exits: XBI, HD, WFC, CB, INSM, SRPT, AZO, MAR, CRWD, TCDA
    • Boosted stakes in: MSFT, PENN, BABA, TMUS, SBUX, MELI, AMZN, JD, VZ, FIS
    • Cut stakes in: JPM, PYPL, WDAY, GOOGL, BKNG, CCL, LYV, FSLY, REGN, NFLX

    ELLIOTT MANAGEMENT

    • Top new buys: UNIT, CUB
    • Top exits: T, RYAAY, SPR
    • Boosted stakes in: DELL, CRMD
    • Cut stakes in: WELL, RILY

    ENGAGED CAPITAL

    • Top new buys: EVH, MX
    • Top exits: SMPL
    • Boosted stakes in: NCR, STKL, IWM
    • Cut stakes in: MED, RCII

    GREENLIGHT CAPITAL

    • Top new buys: SNX, NCR, TWTR, INTC, INGR, DDS, UHAL, ICPT, GHC, PANA
    • Top exits: TPX, SATS, WHR, XELA
    • Boosted stakes in: GLD, AAWW, JACK, REZI, NBSE
    • Cut stakes in: AER, GDX, GPOR, CNX, APG, TECK, CC, CHNG

    ICAHN

    • Boosted stakes in: IEP, XRX
    • Cut stakes in: HLF, LNG

    IMPALA ASSET MANAGEMENT

    • Top new buys: FDX, RKT, FCX, VALE, SBSW, FND, MHK, ALK, THO, AGQ
    • Top exits: QCOM, HES, VAC, DOOO, MU, TGT, DKS, SKX, TJX, CRNC
    • Boosted stakes in: KSU, WYNN, KNX, KL, CMI, SBLK, CNK, CENX
    • Cut stakes in: RIO, SIX, DRI, HOG, TOL, ADNT, TTWO, NSC, MT, LPX

    LAKEWOOD CAPITAL MANAGEMENT

    • Top new buys: LBRDK, TMUS, CWH, GLD, LOW, UPWK, SAIC, VVV, MIK
    • Top exits: YNDX, BLDR, NKLA, SHAK
    • Boosted stakes in: ABG, ANTM, COF, C, SKX, APO, BHC
    • Cut stakes in: BIDU, BC, CI, CMCSA, CWK, AXS, GOOGL, WRK, FB, GS

    LANSDOWNE

    • Top new buys: IDA, BLDP, EQT, CDE, LOOP, KCAC, RIDE
    • Top exits: ONEM, GE, SMMT, GDX, AAL, NKE, SALT
    • Boosted stakes in: FCX, TSM, OTIS, FSLR, EGO, DAR, ETN, COG, TMUS, AG
    • Cut stakes in: C, MU, DAL, LRCX, AMAT, LUV, UAL, AES, ADI, VMC

    LONG POND

    • Top new buys: GLPI, PGRE, EXPE, NTST, H, MGP, XHR, RLJ
    • Top exits: FR, SEAS, INVH, MAR, HST, BXP, TRNO, DRH, ESRT, REXR
    • Boosted stakes in: EQR, AVB, SHO, WELL, AIV, RHP, DEI, HPP, CPT, JBGS
    • Cut stakes in: HLT, PEAK, WH, SBRA, MAA, MAC, HGV, LVS

    MAGNETAR FINANCIAL

    • Top new buys: VAR, MXIM, MPLN, BMCH, GLIBA
    • Top exits: QGEN, PAYA, UTZ, FSR, HYLN, CCC, PACB, SNY, PCG, IR
    • Boosted stakes in: EHC, ABBV, GRUB, PIC, SYNH, NVS, PTAC, MRK, CHNG, AVTR
    • Cut stakes in: UBER, VLDR, LCA, AZN, BDX, NOVA, HCAC, PRGO, PKI, PAE

    MAVERICK CAPITAL

    • Top new buys: BX, NKE, GPN, BECN, GPRO, OSH, GME, MCD, LB, TGT
    • Top exits: BTI, STNE, IRBT, SCHW, NTAP, GIS, CHGG, FL, PLCE, BIG
    • Boosted stakes in: LRCX, GLW, TGTX, LOGI, FLT, PRSP, DD, AMAT, LIVN, AXP
    • Cut stakes in: GOOG, NFLX, AVTR, DLTR, MSFT, APD, AMZN, FB, HUM, ALNY

    MELVIN CAPITAL MANAGEMENT

    • Top new buys: ALGN, MCD, DDOG, TJX, AMD, MSCI, WDAY, SBAC, LYV, TEAM
    • Top exits: CRM, FLT, FIS, CSGP, WEN, YUM, TWLO, NFLX, FB, VRSN
    • Boosted stakes in: BABA, PINS, NKE, NOW, EXPE, ADBE, FISV, GOOGL, DOCU, LVS
    • Cut stakes in: AZO, PYPL, AMZN, MSFT, DPZ, JD, RACE, DECK, CAR, BURL

    OAKTREE CAPITAL MANAGEMENT

    • Top new buys: MEG, UNIT, VALE, AMX, CEO, EQR, GTXMQ, XPEV, LEA
    • Top exits: TMHC, BABA, CZR, IHRT, CCO, SRNE, BCEI
    • Boosted stakes in: TRMD, NMIH, IBN, EGLE, KC, TV, ASC, ITUB
    • Cut stakes in: CCS, AU, TSM, PBR, MELI, BBD, API, GTH, INDA, BIDU

    OMEGA ADVISORS

    • Top new buys: GOOGL, ATH, VRT, MSI, FVAC, EPD, MNRL
    • Top exits: JPM, CNC, GTN, VICI, DNRCQ
    • Boosted stakes in: COOP, OCN, ASPU, FCRD, NAVI, STKL, AMCX, ASH, FOE, SNR
    • Cut stakes in: CI, PE, SRGA, GCI, NBR, LEE, ABR

    PERSHING SQUARE

    Cut stakes in: A, HLT, LOW

    SOROBAN CAPITAL

    • Top new buys: ADI, PSTH, FISV, FIS, ARMK
    • Top exits: NOC
    • Boosted stakes in: YUM, ATUS, MSFT, CSX, RTX
    • Cut stakes in: FB, SNE, AMZN

    SOROS FUND MANAGEMENT

    • Top new buys: QQQ, PLTR, XLI, MCHP, U, VAR, MXIM, DIS, MCHI, NGHC
    • Top exits: TDG, GRFS, BK, BAC, JPM, GS, PNC, USB, WFC, TFC
    • Boosted stakes in: DHI, DRI, ARMK, GM, ATVI, PFSI, TIF, MT, CHTR, APTV
    • Cut stakes in: IGSB, PCG, TMUS, NLOK, PTON, C, GOOGL, OTIS, LPLA, LQD

    STARBOARD

    • Top new buys: SPY, CTVA
    • Top exits: EBAY
    • Boosted stakes in: ACM, ACIW, IWN, GDOT, IWR, MMSI, SCOR, BOX
    • Cut stakes in: NLOK, AAP, IWM, CERN, CVLT

    TEMASEK HOLDINGS

    • Top new buys: DCT, SNOW, SE, IAU, GOVT, SCHP, XLK, BNTX, EWT, IWM
    • Top exits: FIS, VRT, PDD, NIO
    • Boosted stakes in: PYPL, AMZN, IBN, HDB, DDOG
    • Cut stakes in: TME, TMO

    THIRD POINT

    • Top new buys: PCG, MSFT, TDG, FTV, EXPE, PINS, AVTR, CZR, PLNT, GDRX
    • Top exits: BAX, RTX, NKE, EVRG, ATVI, TTWO, GPS, CNNE
    • Boosted stakes in: BABA, JD, BKI, FB, V, BURL, INTU, TEL, ETRN, SHY
    • Cut stakes in: GB, IQV, ADBE, DIS, AMZN, IAA

    TIGER GLOBAL

    • Top new buys: SNOW, GSX, BEKE, SUMO, BIGC, JAMF, FROG, GDRX, CD, ASAN
    • Top exits: NEWR, ATH, CHWY
    • Boosted stakes in: PDD, CRWD, PTON, ZM, NOW, AMZN, UBER, WDAY, TEAM, MSFT
    • Cut stakes in: SVMK, PYPL, TWLO, CRM, BABA

    TUDOR INVESTMENT

    • Top new buys: NGHC, KDP, GDRX, VICI, HEC, FSLR, LIN, RXT, DLR, RPAY
    • Top exits: SOXX, O, X, TMUS, TME, NLOK, SCHW, AVB, SJM, CDAY
    • Boosted stakes in: GRUB, GLIBA, KC, BDX, GOOGL, AMT, TEAM, CVX, ADBE, AMD
    • Cut stakes in: PCG, CRWD, UBER, ATHM, NFLX, SBAC, ESS, BXP, THO, BXMT

    VIKING GLOBAL INVESTORS

    • Top new buys: TSM, AVB, AMD, RTX, GOOGL, CSGP, ZBH, BILL, BMY, OTIS
    • Top exits: UBER, JD, CRM, PLAN, LOW, SHW, LIN, NFLX, DHR, BABA
    • Boosted stakes in: MSFT, TMUS, MELI, FIS, CME, JPM, BKNG, PH, NUAN, HLT
    • Cut stakes in: AMZN, CMCSA, CI, LVS, ALL, DRI, FTV, SE, RPRX, WDAY

    Source: Bloomberg

      

  • Why COVID-19 Testing Is A Tragic Waste
    Why COVID-19 Testing Is A Tragic Waste

    Tyler Durden

    Mon, 11/16/2020 – 22:00

    Authored by Joseph Mercola via LewRockwell.com,

    From the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic, the clarion call has been to test, test and test some more. However, right from the start, serious questions arose about the tests being used to diagnose this infection, and questions have only multiplied since then.

    Positive reverse transcription polymerase chain reaction (RT-PCR) tests have been used as the justification for keeping large portions of the world locked down for the better part of 2020.

    This, despite the fact that PCR tests have proven remarkably unreliable with high false result rates, and aren’t designed to be used as a diagnostic tool in the first place as they cannot distinguish between inactive viruses and “live” or reproductive ones.

    Dr. Mike Yeadon, former vice president and scientific director of Pfizer, has even gone on record stating that false positive results from unreliable PCR tests are being used to “manufacture a ‘second wave’ based on ‘new cases,’” when in fact a second wave is highly unlikely.

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    Understanding PCR Tests

    Before his death, the inventor of the PCR test, Kary Mullis, repeatedly yet unsuccessfully stressed that this test should not be used as a diagnostic tool for the simple reason that it’s incapable of diagnosing disease.

    A positive test does not actually mean that an active infection is present. As noted in a U.S. Centers for Disease Control and prevention publication on coronavirus and PCR testing dated July 13 2020:

    • Detection of viral RNA may not indicate the presence of infectious virus or that 2019-nCoV is the causative agent for clinical symptoms.

    • The performance of this test has not been established for monitoring treatment of 2019-nCoV infection.

    • This test cannot rule out diseases caused by other bacterial or viral pathogens.

    So, what does the PCR test actually tell us? The PCR swab collects RNA from your nasal cavity. This RNA is then reverse transcribed into DNA. However, the genetic snippets are so small they must be amplified in order to become discernible. Each round of amplification is called a cycle.

    Amplification over 35 cycles is considered unreliable and scientifically unjustified, yet Drosten tests and tests recommended by the World Health Organization are set to 45 cycles.

    What this does is amplify any, even insignificant sequences of viral DNA that might be present to the point that the test reads “positive,” even if the viral load is extremely low or the virus is inactive. As a result of these excessive cycle thresholds, you end up with a far higher number of positive tests than you would otherwise.

    We’ve also had problems with faulty and contaminated tests. As soon as the genetic sequence for SARS-CoV-2 became available in January 2020, German researchers quickly developed a PCR test for the virus.

    In March 2020, The New York Times reported the initial test kits developed by the CDC had been found to be flawed. The Verge also reported that this flawed CDC test in turn became the basis for the WHO’s test, which the CDC ended up refusing to use.

    PCR Tests Cannot Detect Infection

    Perhaps most importantly of all, the PCR tests cannot distinguish between inactive viruses and “live” or reproductive ones.

    What that means is that PCR tests cannot detect infection. Period. It cannot tell you whether you’re currently ill, whether you’ll develop symptoms in the near future, or whether you’re contagious.

    The tests may pick up dead debris or inactive viral particles that pose no risk whatsoever to the patient and others. What’s more, the test can pick up the presence of other coronaviruses, so a positive result may simply indicate that you’ve recuperated from a common cold in the past.

    An “infection” is when a virus penetrates into a cell and replicates. As the virus multiplies, symptoms set in. A person is only infectious if the virus is actually replicating. As long as the virus is inactive and not replicating, it’s completely harmless both to the host and others.

    Chances are, if you have no symptoms, a positive test simply means it has detected inactive viral DNA in your body. This would also mean that you are not contagious and pose no risk to anyone.

    For all of these reasons, a number of highly respected scientists around the world are now saying that what we have is not a COVID-19 pandemic but a PCR test pandemic. In his September 20, 2020, article5 “Lies, Damned Lies and Health Statistics — The Deadly Danger of False Positives,” Yeadon explains why basing our pandemic response on positive PCR tests is so problematic.

    In short, it appears millions of people are simply being found to carry inactive viral DNA that pose no risk to anyone, yet these test results are being used by the global technocracy to implement a brand new economic and social system based on draconian surveillance and totalitarian controls.

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    Artificially Created Justifications for Totalitarian Controls

    As reported by The Vaccine Reaction, September 29, 2020:

    “The test’s threshold is so high that it detects people with the live virus as well as those with a few genetic fragments left over from a past infection that no longer poses a risk. It’s like finding a hair in a room after a person left it, says Michael Mina, MD, an epidemiologist at the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health.

    In three sets of testing data that include cycle thresholds compiled by officials in Massachusetts, New York and Nevada, up to 90% of people testing positive carried barely any virus, a review by The New York Times found…

    ‘We’ve been using one type of data for everything, and that is just plus or minus — that’s all,’ Dr. Mina said. ‘We’re using that for clinical diagnostics, for public health, for policy decision-making.’

    But ‘yes’ or ‘no’ isn’t good enough, he added. It’s the amount of virus that should dictate the infected patient’s next steps. ‘It’s really irresponsible, I think, to forgo the recognition that this is a quantitative issue,’ Dr. Mina said.”

    Again, medical experts agree any cycle threshold over 35 cycles makes the test too sensitive, as at that point it starts picking up harmless inactive DNA fragments. Mina believes a more reasonable cutoff would be 30 or less.

    According to The New York Times, the CDC’s own calculations show it’s extremely unlikely to detect live viruses in samples that have gone through more than 33 cycles, and research published in April 2020 concluded patients with positive PCR tests that had a cycle threshold above 33 were not contagious and could safely be discharged from the hospital or home isolation.

    Importantly, when officials at the New York state laboratory, the Wadsworth Center, reanalyzed testing data at The Times’ request, they found that changing the threshold from 40 cycles to 35 cycles eliminated about 43% of the positive results. Limiting it to 30 cycles eliminated a whopping 63%. The Vaccine Reaction adds:

    “In Massachusetts, from 85 to 90% of people who tested positive in July with a cycle threshold of 40 would have been deemed negative if the threshold were 30 cycles, Dr. Mina said. ‘I would say that none of those people should be contact-traced, not one,’ he said.

    ‘I’m really shocked that it could be that high — the proportion of people with high CT value results,’ said Ashish Jha, MD, director of the Harvard Global Health Institute. ‘Boy, does it really change the way we need to be thinking about testing’…

    In late August, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) approved the first rapid coronavirus test that doesn’t need any special computer equipment. Made by Abbot Laboratories, the 15-minute test [BinaxNOW] will sell for U.S. $5 but still requires a nasal swab to be taken by a health worker.

    The Abbot test is the fourth rapid point-of-care test that looks for the presence of antigens rather than the virus’s genetic code as the PCR molecular tests do.“

    Massive Waste of Resources

    As noted by Dr. Tom Jefferson and professor Carl Henegan in an October 31, 2020, article in the Daily Mail,16 mass PCR testing has been a massive waste or resources, as it doesn’t provide us with the information we actually need to know — who’s infectious, how far is the virus spreading and how fast does it spread?

    Instead, it has led to economic devastation from business shutdowns and isolating noninfectious people in their homes for weeks and months on end. Jefferson and Henegan claim they shared their pandemic response plan with British Prime Minister Boris Johnson over a month ago, and just presented it to him again. “We urge him to pay attention and embrace it,” they write, adding:

    “There are only two things about which we can be certain: first, that lockdowns do not work in the long term… The idea that a month of economic hardship will permit some sort of ‘reset’, allowing us a brighter future, is a myth. What, when it ends, do we think will happen? Meanwhile, ever-increasing restrictions will destroy lives and livelihoods.

    The second certainty is this: that we need to find a way out of the mess that does no more damage than the virus itself… Our strategy would be to tackle the four key failings.”

    These four areas are:

    1. Addressing the problems in the government’s mass testing program

    2. Addressing “the blight of confused and contradictory statistics”

    3. Protect and isolate the vulnerable — primarily the elderly, but also hospitalized patients in general and staff — while allowing the rest to maintain “some semblance of normal life”

    4. Inform the public about the true and quantifiable costs of lockdown that “kill people just as surely as COVID-19”

    “If we do these things, there is real hope that we can learn to live with the virus. That, after all, was supposed to be the plan,” Jefferson and Henegan note. With regard to testing, the pair call “for a national program of testing quality control to ensure that results are accurate, precise and consistent.”

    Importantly, we must not rely on positive/negative readings alone. The results must be assessed in relation to other factors, such as the age of the subject and whether they are symptomatic, to determine who actually poses an infectious risk. You can review the full details of their proposed plan at the end of their Daily Mail article.

    Lockdown Dangers Have Been Kept Out of Public Discussion

    Jefferson and Henegan aren’t the only ones highlighting the fact that the global lockdown strategy is causing more harm and destruction than the virus itself. In a June 16, 2020 article in The Federalist, James Lucas, a New York City attorney, wrote:18

    “If we’re going to allow models and modelers to dictate the entire nature of our society, one would hope that the models are as complete as possible. Yet the epidemiological models that have so transformed our world are seriously incomplete, and therefore fundamentally inadequate.

    Any medical therapy is supposed to be tested for both efficacy and safety. There have been several studies examining the effectiveness of the lockdowns in combating the spread of the COVID-19 virus, with mixed conclusions.

    So far, however, none of these studies or models have analyzed the safety side of the lockdown therapy. In response to questions from physician Sens. Rand Paul and Bill Cassidy, Dr. Anthony Fauci admits this side of the equation has not been accounted for in the models now driving our world.

    As noted in an open letter recently signed by more than 600 health-care professionals, the public health costs from the lockdowns — described as a ‘mass casualty incident’ are real and growing.

    These models are estimations based on existing research. The constantly changing projections of coronavirus deaths are extrapolations from research on previous epidemics. Yet modelers have no excuse for leaving evaluations of the lockdowns’ massive costs to public health out of their models.”

    The Hidden Costs of Lockdowns

    How does the “lockdown therapy” affect public safety? In his article, Lucas highlights the following:

    Increased chronic disease rates due to unemployment, poverty and putting non-COVID medical care on hold — Research23 by the Veterans Administration has shown delaying cancer treatment for just one month led to a 20% increase in mortality. Another study found each one-month delay in breast cancer diagnosis increased mortality by 10%

    Increased rates of mental health problems due to unemployment and isolation

    Increased mortality rates from suicide — In one study, being unemployed was associated with a twofold to threefold higher relative risk of suicide. A more recent study estimates “deaths of despair” linked to lockdowns may be around 75,000 in the U.S.

    Reduced collective life span — Extended unemployment is also associated with shorter, unhealthier lives. Hannes Schwandt, a health economics researcher at Northwestern University, estimates an extended economic shutdown could shorten the lifespan of 6.4 million Americans entering the job market by an average of about two years. Lucas notes:

    “If epidemiologists don’t care to take account of this toll, another profession must. A study28 just released by a group of South African actuaries estimates that the net reduction in lifespan from increased unemployment and poverty due to a national lockdown will exceed the increased lifespan due to lives saved from COVID-19 by the lockdown by a factor of 30 to 1.

    In other words, each year of additional life attributable to isolating potential coronavirus victims in the lockdown comes at a cost of 30 years lost due to the negative public health effects of a lockdown…”

    Lack of education is also associated with significantly shorter life spans and poorer health. High school drop-outs die on average nine years sooner than college graduates, and school closings disproportionally affect poorer students.

    Who Pays the Most?

    As noted by Lucas, in addition to calculating the overall costs on society, modelers must also determine “on whom those costs fall,” because the costs are not borne equally by all. The consequences of the lockdowns disproportionally affect those who are already the most vulnerable — financially and health wise — such as those living near the poverty line, the chronically ill, people with mental illness and minorities in general.

    “Contrary to the PR slogan, we are NOT all in this together,” Lucas writes. “We need less insipid pro-lockdown propaganda extolling the virtues of the ‘essential’ workers, and more serious analysis of the enormous public health toll the lockdowns are imposing on them. Otherwise, we may come to see the era of coronavirus as simply the time where pro-lockdown elites sacrificed the working class31 to protect themselves.”

    A Pandemic of Fearmongering

    An October 28, 2020, article featured by the Ron Paul Institute points out that:

    “Ever since the alleged pandemic erupted this past March the mainstream media has spewed a non-stop stream of misinformation that appears to be laser focused on generating maximum fear among the citizenry.

    But the facts and the science simply don’t support the grave picture painted of a deadly virus sweeping the land. Yes, we do have a pandemic, but it’ a pandemic of ginned up pseudo-science masquerading as unbiased fact.”

    Nine facts that can be backed up with data “paints a very different picture from the fear and dread being relentlessly drummed into the brains of unsuspecting citizens,” the article states. In addition to the fact that PCR testing is practically useless, for all the reasons already mentioned, these data-backed facts include:

    1. A positive test is NOT a “case” — As explained by Dr. Lee Merritt in her August 2020 Doctors for Disaster Preparedness33 lecture, featured in “How Medical Technocracy Made the Plandemic Possible,” media and public health officials appear to have purposefully conflated “cases” or positive tests with the actual illness.

    Medically speaking, a “case” refers to a sick person. It never ever referred to someone who had no symptoms of illness. Now all of a sudden, this well-established medical term, “case,” has been completely and arbitrarily redefined to mean someone who tested positive for the presence of viral RNA. As noted by Merritt, “That is not epidemiology. That’s fraud.”

    2. According to the CDC34 and other research data,35 the COVID-19 survival rate is over 99%, and the vast majority of deaths occur in those over 70, which is close to normal life expectancy.

    3. CDC analysis reveals 85% of patients testing positive for COVID-19 wore face masks “often” or “always” in the two weeks preceding their positive test. As noted in the Ron Paul article,36 “The only rational conclusion from this study is that cloth face masks offer little if any protection from Covid-19 infection.”

    4. There are inexpensive, proven successful therapies for COVID-19 — Examples include various regimens involving hydroxychloroquine with zinc and antibiotics, quercetin-based protocols, the MATH+ protocol and nebulized hydrogen peroxide.

    5. The death rate has not risen despite pandemic deaths — Data37,38 show the overall all-cause mortality has remained steady during 2020 and doesn’t veer from the norm. In other words, COVID-19 has not killed off more of the population than would have died in any given year anyway.

    As noted in the Ron Paul article, “According to the CDC as of early May 2020 the total number of deaths in the US was 944,251 from January 1 — April 30th. This is actually slightly lower than the number of deaths during the same period in 2017 when 946,067 total deaths were reported.”

    15,000 Doctors and Scientists Call for End to Lockdowns

    All in all, there are many reasons to suspect that continued lockdowns, social distancing and mask mandates are completely unnecessary and will not significantly alter the course of this pandemic illness, or the final death count.

    And, with regard to universal PCR testing where individuals are tested every two weeks or even more frequently, whether they have symptoms or not, this is clearly a pointless effort that yields useless data. It’s just a tool to spread fear, which in turn allows for the rapid implementation of the totalitarian control mechanisms required to pull off The Great Reset. Fortunately, more and more people are now starting to see through this plot.

    About 45,000 scientists and doctors worldwide have already signed the Great Barrington Declaration, which calls for the end to all lockdowns and implementation of a herd immunity approach to the pandemic, meaning governments should allow people who are not at significant risk of serious COVID-19 illness to go back to normal life, as the lockdown approach is having a devastating effect on public health — far worse than the virus itself. The declaration states:

    “Coming from both the left and right, and around the world, we have devoted our careers to protecting people. Current lockdown policies are producing devastating effects on short and long-term public health…

    The most compassionate approach that balances the risks and benefits of reaching herd immunity, is to allow those who are at minimal risk of death to live their lives normally to build up immunity to coronavirus through natural infection, while better protecting those who are at highest risk. We call this focused protection.”

    The declaration points out that current lockdown policies will result in excess mortality in the future, primarily among younger people and the working class. As of November 5, 2020, The Great Barrington Declaration had been signed by 11,791 medical and public health scientists, 33,903 medical practitioners and 617,685 “concerned citizens.”

  • Iran Blasts Story Of "Al-Qaeda No.2" Killing In Tehran By Israeli Agents As "Psychological Warfare"
    Iran Blasts Story Of "Al-Qaeda No.2" Killing In Tehran By Israeli Agents As "Psychological Warfare"

    Tyler Durden

    Mon, 11/16/2020 – 21:40

    A weekend story in The Washington Post and others claimed that three months ago the CIA and Israel’s Mossad conducted a successful high-risk operation to kill al-Qaeda’s deputy leader in Tehran who was among the terror group’s founding members, and next in line to take command after Ayman al-Zawahri.

    It was no less than the accused mastermind behind the twin bombings of the US embassies in Kenya and Tanzania which killed 224 people and is remembered as al-Qaeda’s first large-scale terror attack on United States targets. The covert assassination reads like a Hollywood script: 

    Israeli agents acting at the behest of American officials assassinated al-Qaeda’s second-in-command in August, in a brazen drive-by shooting in Iran’s capital, according to a senior U.S. official.

    Abdullah Ahmed Abdullah, whose nom de guerre was Abu Muhammad al-Masri, was killed along with his daughter, Maryam, as they were driving in an upscale Tehran neighborhood, according to the official, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because of the matter’s sensitivity.

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    Curiously in the case of past major terror leader killings which had US involvement, President Trump was quick to make public the information and declare ‘victory’. In the case of any major successful covert op to kill Abu Muhammad al-Masri, Trump would have spiked that football, especially in the middle of his reelection campaign. But instead the world is hearing about it many months after the fact.

    Iran is now vehemently denying it. A detailed CNN account of what is known notes that Iranian state media initially said the man killed was a Lebanese academic tied to Hezbollah, but that story didn’t appear to bear out.

    Still, even in local media it remained a mystery as to exactly what happened:

    On the night of August 7, residents of a middle-class neighborhood in northern Tehran heard shooting. Some of them rushed out to see what had happened.

    Slumped in a white Renault was a middle-aged man and a younger woman. Both were dead. At least four shots had been fired at them; another had hit a passing car. The two assailants had been on a motorbike, according to Iranian news agencies.

    After being reported in the last days by The New York Times, Washington Post, and AP News, Iran has blasted the story as yet another tactic by neocons in D.C. to tie the Shia Islamic Republic to the Sunni terror group al-Qaeda. 

    With this latest claim of Masri’s assassination, the central suggestion to the narrative is that Iran was “harboring” him:

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    Iran’s foreign ministry on Saturday charged the United States and Israel with falsely trying “to draw a link between Iran and such groups through falsification and the leakage of fabricated information to the media,” according to state media.

    Iran’s statement further said it was somewhat routine disinformation tied to Trump and Pompeo’s “maximum pressure” campaign: “Such accusations are undoubtedly part of the full-fledged economic, intelligence and psychological war against the Iranian people, and the media should not act as a tribune for spreading the White House’s purposeful lies about Iran,” according to the official statement. 

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    Indeed one key neocon talking point has long been that somehow Iran was ultimately behind 9/11, despite the growing body of evidence pointing to Saudi state sponsorship. 

    The geopolitical analysis site Moon of Alabama has issued a partial list of the many times over the past decade the media has hailed the killing of “Al Qaeda’s #2” – strongly suggesting Iran’s denial of the story has merit: 

    Moon of Alabama had even reported on the slew of similar and “convenient” headlines throughout the mid to late 2000’s:

    Twelve years ago we already joked about all the fake “Al-Qaeda No.2 killed” stories which appeared in 2005, 2006, 2007 and 2008.

    The Trump White House has lately vowed to slap as many sanctions on the Islamic Republic as possible right up to January 20, when Biden is expected to enter the White House. 

    The administration has openly touted that it will seek to make it nearly impossible for Biden to lift all sanctions and re-enter the JCPOA nuclear deal brokered under Obama.

  • Even A Military-Enforced Quarantine Can't Stop The Virus, Study Reveals
    Even A Military-Enforced Quarantine Can't Stop The Virus, Study Reveals

    Tyler Durden

    Mon, 11/16/2020 – 21:20

    Authored by Jeffrey Tucker via The American Institute for Economic Research,

    The New England Journal of Medicine has published a study that goes to the heart of the issue of lockdowns. The question has always been whether and to what extent a lockdown, however extreme, is capable of suppressing the virus. If so, you can make an argument that at least lockdowns, despite their astronomical social and economic costs, achieve something. If not, nations of the world have embarked on a catastrophic experiment that has destroyed billions of lives, and all expectation of human rights and liberties, with no payoff at all. 

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    AIER has long highlighted studies that show no gain in virus management from lockdowns. Even as early as April, a major data scientist said that this virus becomes endemic in 70 days after the first round of infection, regardless of policies. The largest global study of lockdowns compared with deaths as published in The Lancet found no association between coercive stringencies and deaths per million. 

    To test further might seem superfluous but, for whatever reason, governments all over the world, including in the US, still are under the impression that they can affect viral transmissions through a range of “nonpharmaceutical interventions” (NPIs) like mandatory masks, forced human separation, stay-at-home orders, bans of gatherings, business and school closures, and extreme travel restrictions. Nothing like this has been tried on this scale in the whole of human history, so one might suppose that policy makers have some basis for their confidence that these measures accomplish something. 

    A study conducted by Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai in cooperation with the Naval Medical Research Center sought to test lockdowns along with testing and isolation. In May, 3,143 new recruits to the Marines were given the option to participate in a study of frequent testing under extreme quarantine. The study was called CHARM, which stands for COVID-19 Health Action Response for Marines. Of the recruits asked, a total of 1,848 young people agreed to be guinea pigs in this experiment which involved “which included weekly qPCR testing and blood sampling for IgG antibody assessment.” In addition, the CHARM study volunteers who did test positively “on the day of enrollment (day 0) or on day 7 or day 14 were separated from their roommates and were placed in isolation.”

    What did the recruits have to do? The study explains, and, as you will see, they faced an even more strict regime that has existed in civilian life in most places. All recruits, even those not in the CHARM group, did the following.

    All recruits wore double-layered cloth masks at all times indoors and outdoors, except when sleeping or eating; practiced social distancing of at least 6 feet; were not allowed to leave campus; did not have access to personal electronics and other items that might contribute to surface transmission; and routinely washed their hands. They slept in double-occupancy rooms with sinks, ate in shared dining facilities, and used shared bathrooms. All recruits cleaned their rooms daily, sanitized bathrooms after each use with bleach wipes, and ate preplated meals in a dining hall that was cleaned with bleach after each platoon had eaten.

    Most instruction and exercises were conducted outdoors. All movement of recruits was supervised, and unidirectional flow was implemented, with designated building entry and exit points to minimize contact among persons. All recruits, regardless of participation in the study, underwent daily temperature and symptom screening. Six instructors who were assigned to each platoon worked in 8-hour shifts and enforced the quarantine measures. If recruits reported any signs or symptoms consistent with Covid-19, they reported to sick call, underwent rapid qPCR testing for SARS-CoV-2, and were placed in isolation pending the results of testing.

    Instructors were also restricted to campus, were required to wear masks, were provided with preplated meals, and underwent daily temperature checks and symptom screening. Instructors who were assigned to a platoon in which a positive case was diagnosed underwent rapid qPCR testing for SARS-CoV-2, and, if the result was positive, the instructor was removed from duty. Recruits and instructors were prohibited from interacting with campus support staff, such as janitorial and food-service personnel. After each class completed quarantine, a deep bleach cleaning of surfaces was performed in the bathrooms, showers, bedrooms, and hallways in the dormitories, and the dormitory remained unoccupied for at least 72 hours before reoccupancy.

    The reputation of Marine basic training is that it is tough going but this really does take it to another level. Also, this is an environment where those in charge do not mess around. There was surely close to 100% compliance, as compared with, for example, a typical college campus. 

    What were the results? The virus still spread, though 90% of those who tested positive were without symptoms. Incredibly, 2% of the CHARM recruits still contracted the virus, even if all but one remained asymptomatic. “Our study showed that in a group of predominantly young male military recruits, approximately 2% became positive for SARS-CoV-2, as determined by qPCR assay, during a 2-week, strictly enforced quarantine.” 

    And how does this compare to the control group that was not tested and not isolated in the case of a positive case?  

    Have a look at this chart from the study:

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    New England Journal of Medicine

    Which is to say that the nonparticipants actually contracted the virus at a slightly lower rate than those who were under an extreme regime. Conversely, extreme enforcement of NPIs plus more frequent testing and isolation was associated with a greater degree of infection. 

    I’m grateful to Don Wolt for drawing my attention to this study, which, so far as I know, has received very little attention from any media source at all, despite having been published in the New England Journal of Medicine on November 11. 

    Here are four actual media headlines about the study that miss the point entirely:

    • CNN: “Many military Covid-19 cases are asymptomatic, studies show”

    • SciTech Daily: “Asymptomatic COVID-19 Transmission Revealed Through Study of 2,000 Marine Recruits”

    • ABC: “Broad study of Marine recruits shows limits of COVID-19 symptom screening” 

    • US Navy: “Navy/Marine Corps COVID-19 Study Findings Published in New England Journal of Medicine”

    No national news story that I have found highlighted the most important finding of all: extreme quarantine plus frequent testing and isolation among military recruits did nothing to stop the virus. 

    The study is important because of the social structure of control here. It’s one thing to observe no effects from national lockdowns. There are countless variables here that could be invoked as cautionary notes: demographics, population density, preexisting immunities, degree of compliance, and so on. But with this Marine study, you have a near homogeneous group based on age, health, and densities of living. And even here, you see confirmed what so many other studies have shown: lockdowns are pointlessly destructive. They do not manage the disease. They crush human liberty and produce astonishing costs, such as 5.53 million years of lost life from the closing of schools alone. 

    The lockdowners keep telling us to pay attention to the science. That’s what we are doing. When the results contradict their pro-compulsion narrative, they pretend that the studies do not exist and barrel ahead with their scary plans to disable all social functioning in the presence of a virus. Lockdowns are not science. They never have been. They are an experiment in social/political top-down management that is without precedent in cost to life and liberty. 

  • Biden Adds UC Irvine Reparations Advocate To Transition Team
    Biden Adds UC Irvine Reparations Advocate To Transition Team

    Tyler Durden

    Mon, 11/16/2020 – 21:00

    Joe Biden has tapped UC Irvine Law professor Mehrsa Baradaran to help his potential administration “hit the ground running on Day One” as a member of his Treasury Department agency review team.

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    Baradaran, as noted by the Washington Free Beacon, “is an outspoken advocate of reparations for black Americans, both as a means of correcting “white supremacy” and closing the racial wealth gap.”

    Notably, Biden and his running-mate Kamala Harrois (D-CA) ignored the topic of reparations throughout the 2020 election to the point where Baradaran called Harris out on it over Twitter, writing “Dear Kamala, Reparations or go home.”

    In December 2019, she wrote during the Democratic primaries that “Biden just dodged that reparations question like a much nimbler and younger man.”

    More via the Washington Free Beacon (emphasis ours):

    In her 2017 book The Color of Money: Black Banks and the Racial Wealth Gap, Baradaran argues that closing the racial wealth gap requires acknowledging past wrongs and providing compensation for damages. “A reparations program could take many forms from simple cash payments or baby bonds to more complex schemes such as subsidized college tuition, basic income, housing vouchers, or subsidized mortgage credit,” she writes. Baradaran’s book inspired Netflix to donate $100 million to organizations that “support Black communities.”

    Before joining Biden’s transition team, Baradaran helped Sen. Bernie Sanders (I., Vt.), Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D., Mass.), and former South Bend mayor Pete Buttigieg on policy proposals to address the racial wealth gap. Biden, who left reparations out of his racial equity plan, said he would study the issue. “[Biden] believes that we should gather the data necessary to have an informed conversation about reparations, but he has not endorsed a specific bill,” a spokeswoman said during the campaign.

    Harris has been similarly noncommittal. “When you are talking about the years and years and years of trauma that were experienced because of slavery, because of Jim Crow and because of all that we have seen in terms of institutional and legal discrimination and racism, this is very real and it needs to be studied,” she said during a CNN town hall in April 2019.

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    Reparations could carry an estimated $17 trillion price tag, according to a 2019 analysis from the House Judiciary Committee on the Constitution, Civil Rights and Civil Liberties.

  • The Corporate Media Gaslighting Campaign That Failed
    The Corporate Media Gaslighting Campaign That Failed

    Tyler Durden

    Mon, 11/16/2020 – 20:40

    Authored by Brain Cates via The Epoch Times,

    If you’re making the mistake of getting all your news from the six corporations that control most of the American mainstream media, then you’ve heard that the 2020 presidential election ended days ago, Joe Biden was declared the winner, and the transition period between the incoming Biden administration and the outgoing Trump White House has already begun.

    And you’d be wrong about that, because the corporate news media is deliberately misleading you.

    The truth is that, as I write this column on Friday, Nov. 13, despite what the media is claiming, the actual results of the presidential election are still undecided.

    A hotly contested race for the White House ended with no clear winner on election night, and indeed there might not be a clear winner for some weeks yet.

    As troubling as that is all by itself, the corporate media using it as an opportunity to launch one of the most brazen gaslighting campaigns ever is infuriating to me.

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    The News Media Has No Power to Declare Who Wins an Election

    First, corporate media outlets pretended they had the authority to declare who had won the election. The U.S. Constitution quite clearly states how the winner of a presidential election is decided, and the news media isn’t mentioned there.

    All media outlets are limited to doing is predicting who they believe has won an election. That’s not what the U.S. news media did here. They’re claiming it’s their job to “declare” the winner.

    After awarding themselves the magical ability to declare who had won the presidential race, the national news media quickly set about loudly claiming that the transition phase between the supposedly outgoing Trump administration and the incoming Biden administration had already begun.

    Story after story has appeared over the past week about how “troubling” it is that the Trump administration is refusing to “work with” the Biden transition team.

    Trump’s White House is completely correct in rebuffing attempts by Biden’s transition team to assert its authority, because the transition from one administration to another hasn’t started yet, as I will now explain.

    The Media Has Created, and Then Sought to Take Advantage of, Transition Confusion

    After Biden and his running-mate Kamala Harris came out for their victory speeches on the Friday night following the election, the major networks timed their own announcements that the presidential race was over for the beginning of the Saturday morning college football games. This is when these networks knew millions of American sports fans would be tuning in to watch.

    And so the corporate media has stridently insisted for the past week that the election is over because they said it was over, even as states were not yet called, votes were still being counted in closely contested states, and President Donald Trump was pursuing legal action in multiple state and federal courts as he sought recounts and audits.

    But a transition can’t begin until one of the parties concedes to the other. And that hasn’t happened yet.

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    The History of Past Transitions

    In 2016, Hillary Clinton conceded to Donald Trump on the night of the election. This meant the very next day the transition period between the departing Obama administration and the incoming Trump administration began.

    In the 2000 presidential contest, Albert Gore Jr. lost a very close race that came down to a razor thin margin of victory for George W. Bush in the state of Florida.

    Gore initially conceded to Bush, but then later withdrew his concession and demanded a recount of the votes in Florida. Lawsuits were filed in state and federal courts and multiple recounts were held, all of which Bush won.

    After these numerous recounts, it became clear that the Democrat strategy was to keep suing for recounts until Gore managed to win one, at which point the Democrats would demand the recounts stop.

    Much to the Democratic Party’s chagrin, the Supreme Court finally ruled in Bush’s favor and stopped the recounts, leading Gore to reluctantly concede to Bush on Dec. 13, 2000.

    Only at that point did the transition phase between the Clinton administration and the incoming Bush administration officially begin.

    During those 30+ days of limbo in 2000, nobody in either party or campaign or the media went around loudly claiming the election was over and that the transition period had already begun, or that Bush or Gore was the “president-elect.” It would have been absurd.

    If Trump had conceded and not sought recounts and audits in the courts, that would have signaled the beginning of the transition period.

    But that’s not what has happened.

    So the mainstream media has spent over a week brazenly insisting a transition period has begun and is now underway when this is simply not the case.

    Abusing the Public Trust

    The mainstream media has been willingly and deliberately playing a role in coordination with the Democratic Party and the political elite class to mislead the American public about how presidential elections are decided and when a presidential transition begins.

    Fox New’s self-sabotage is the most crass example of a media outlet determined to do its part in the propagandistic charade.

    The leftward tilt of Fox News has been apparent for some time, but the blatant partisan behavior of the network on election night still managed to stun its audience.

    Fox will now reap what it has sown, as millions of former viewers change the channel to far more honest network competitors, such as OAN and Newsmax.

    This kind of behavior is not serving the public trust; it’s abuse of that trust. Plenty of Americans have had enough of this abuse, and are seeking out alternative news outlets.

  • "No, This Is Trump": Georgia Recount Auditor Claims Multiple Trump Ballots Fraudulently Called For Biden
    "No, This Is Trump": Georgia Recount Auditor Claims Multiple Trump Ballots Fraudulently Called For Biden

    Tyler Durden

    Mon, 11/16/2020 – 20:25

    A GOP recount observer in Georgia claims that several ballots recorded as Biden were actually votes for Trump, and workers conducting the recount became angry when he reported what was happening to elections officials.

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    The insider told Project Veritas, “The second person was supposed to be checking it right, three times in three minutes she called out Biden,” adding “The second auditor caught it and she said, “No, this is Trump.””

    “Now, that’s just while I’m standing there. So, does the second checker catch it every time? But this lady in three times in three minutes from 2:09 to 2:12 she got three wrong.”” he continued, adding “They were calling their bosses. They were pointing at me…”

    Watch:

    Earlier in the day, Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger hit back against claims that he facilitated an unfair, illegal ballot count. He’s also been accused of trying to skip the manual recount altogether, and initially “wanted to just rescan the bar codes & be done with it.”

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  • Senate Republicans Say They'll Continue Hunter Biden Probe
    Senate Republicans Say They'll Continue Hunter Biden Probe

    Tyler Durden

    Mon, 11/16/2020 – 20:05

    Authored by Jack Phillips via The Epoch Times,

    Sens. Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa) and Ron Johnson (R-Wis.), who headed a Senate investigation into Joe Biden’s family dealings, signaled they will continue their investigations in 2021 after the new Congress is sworn in.

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    “I’m not going to turn a blind eye” to the recent developments in the investigation, Johnson told The Hill, which claimed there is “limited appetite” among Republicans for a renewal of the probe.

    “Tony Bobulinski coming forward, the computer being revealed, the FBI possibly starting an investigation. We had a hard enough time getting what evidence we got to even write a report, and then all of a sudden our report sort of opened up this logjam,” said Johnson, the head of the Senate Homeland Security Committee.

    He was making a reference to Hunter Biden and James Biden—Joe Biden’s son and brother—and their overseas business dealings that became the subject of scrutiny and big tech censorship last month.

    “I’m very confident there are probably more financial transactions that will probably be revealed,” Johnson added to the outlet.

    Both Grassley, the head of the Senate Finance Committee, and Johnson have been investigating the Bidens’ business, namely in reference to Hunter’s reportedly lucrative position on the board of Ukrainian gas company Burisma Holdings, which has been long suspected of corruption.

    Last month, the New York Post and other news outlets reported on a laptop that allegedly belonged to Hunter Biden, which contained an email from a Burisma advisor that suggested Hunter was trying to set up a meeting for his father when he was the vice president. The Biden campaign denied the meeting ever took place but later qualified that it might have happened in an unofficial capacity.

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    Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Chairman Ron Johnson (R-Wis.) speaks in Washington on Sept. 16, 2020. (Manuel Balce Ceneta/AP Photo)

    Later, Bobulinski told Fox News’ Tucker Carlson that he was involved in business deals with the Biden family and met the former vice president on two occasions, pertaining to a deal with a Chinese Communist Party (CCP)-linked company CEFC. Biden’s campaign and Joe Biden have both denied knowing anything about Hunter Biden’s business dealings.

    Grassley and Johnson released a report in September saying that the Obama administration ignored “glaring warning signs” when Hunter Biden joined Burisma, a company started by Ukrainian oligarch Mykola Zlochevsky. Zlochevsky is being investigated for corruption by Ukrainian prosecutors and his whereabouts are reportedly unknown.

    Hunter Biden, in an interview last year, said his role at Burisma was “poor judgment on my part,” according to ABC, and he asserted he did nothing wrong. “Is that I think that it was poor judgment because I don’t believe now, when I look back on it—I know that there was—did nothing wrong at all.”

  • Kissinger Warns Biden: Anti-China Coalition Could Cause "Catastrophe Comparable To World War I"
    Kissinger Warns Biden: Anti-China Coalition Could Cause "Catastrophe Comparable To World War I"

    Tyler Durden

    Mon, 11/16/2020 – 19:45

    Many have feared US tensions with China are on such an edge on multiple fronts, also through allies in the region, that war could easily erupt based on what in normal times might be seen as a small encounter or incident.

    And now, Henry Kissinger has raised his warning levels during the opening session of the Bloomberg New Economy Forum, telling the incoming Biden administration should move quickly to restore lines of communication with China that frayed during the Trump years or risk a crisis that could escalate into military conflict.

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    When we previously heard from the former US secretary of state on the last couple of occasions, he was warning that a permanent conflict between Washington And Beijing would be unwinnable and lead to “catastrophic outcome”…

    “It’s no longer possible to think that one side can dominate the other… it will be worse than the world wars that ruined European civilisation,” said Kissinger.

    The 96-year-old noted that there is an important difference between previous times and now: “American endurance then was fortified by an ultimate national purpose. Now, in a divided country, efficient and farsighted government is necessary to overcome obstacles unprecedented in magnitude and global scope,”

    “Sustaining the public trust is crucial to social solidarity, to the relation of societies with each other, and to international peace and stability,” he said.

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    This all fits with his new statements today, warning the Biden administration today that:

    “Unless there is some basis for some cooperative action, the world will slide into a catastrophe comparable to World War I.”

    The former US Secretary of State added that despite the two sides reaching a “phase one” trade deal at the start of the year, U.S.-China relations are at their lowest in decades as the virus outbreak that began in Wuhan has become a global killer:

    “America and China are now drifting increasingly toward confrontation, and they’re conducting their diplomacy in a confrontational way.”

    “The United States and China have never faced countries of a magnitude that is roughly equal with the other,” Kissinger added.

    “This is the first experience. And we must avoid its turning into conflict, and hopefully lead to some cooperative endeavors.”

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    Rather notably however, after Hank Paulson’s calls for broad-based renewed talks with China, when reviewing some of Biden’s proposals for addressing China, Kissinger urged caution when asked about the idea of building a coalition of democracies to take on Beijing.

    “I think democracies should cooperate wherever their convictions allow it or dictate it,” he added.

    “I think a coalition aimed at a particular country is unwise, but a coalition to prevent dangers is necessary where the occasion requires.”

    As Kissinger warned previously, we went on from the Battle of the Bulge into a world of growing prosperity and enhanced human dignity. Now, we live an epochal period. The historic challenge for leaders is to manage the crisis while building the future. Failure could set the world on fire.

  • Twitter Blocks Iran Oil Minister's Account
    Twitter Blocks Iran Oil Minister's Account

    Tyler Durden

    Mon, 11/16/2020 – 19:25

    Authored by Charles Kennedy via OilPrice.com,

    Twitter has blocked the official account of Bijan Zanganeh, the Petroleum Minister of Iran, IRNA has reported.

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    The U.S. government slapped sanctions Ion Zanganeh in late October, as part of a round of sanctions targeting the country’s oil industry specifically, including the National Iranian Oil Company and the National Iranian Tanker Company.

    These were sanctioned for “their financial support to Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps-Qods Force (IRGC-QF),” according to a Treasury statement.

    Senior NIOC and NITC personnel have worked closely with Rostam Ghasemi, a senior IRGC-QF official and former Minister of Petroleum who was designated in 2019, and who has assumed a portion of former IRGC-QF Commander Qasem Soleimani’s role in “facilitating shipments of oil and petroleum products for the financial benefit of the IRGC-QF,” the Treasury Department went on to say in October.

    “OFAC is also designating multiple entities and individuals associated with the Ministry of Petroleum, NIOC, and NITC, including front companies, subsidiaries, and senior executives. In addition, OFAC is designating four persons involved in the recent sale of Iranian gasoline to the illegitimate Maduro regime in Venezuela.”

    In response to the statement, Zanganeh tweeted, “Imposition of sanctions on me and my colleagues is a passive reaction to the failure of Washington’s policy of reducing [Iran’s] crude oil exports to zero. The era of unilateralism is over in the world. Iran’s oil industry will not be hamstrung.”

    The minister added at the time that he owned no assets abroad, so he was impervious to sanctions.

    The reason for Twitter’s move remains a mystery. Its rules of conduct include account suspensions in case of promotion of terrorism or violence, abuse and harassment, and hateful conduct, among others.

    Despite Washington’s efforts, Iran continues to export oil, according to data presented by a government official earlier this month: the daily average since March has been about 600,000 to 700,000 barrels. The country has had to become inventive, forging documents about the origin of the crude, using ship-to-ship transfers at sea, and switching off tanker transponders to cloak their destination.

  • China's Biggest Bank Pulls Massive Blockchain-Backed Bond Issue As Defaults Build
    China's Biggest Bank Pulls Massive Blockchain-Backed Bond Issue As Defaults Build

    Tyler Durden

    Mon, 11/16/2020 – 19:10

    With liquidity shortfalls mounting and defaults starting to accelerate, the already-opaque Chinese corporate bond market has hit a wall as the unexpected default of a Chinese coal miner has prompted particular concern over the health of these firms and their lenders, triggering a selloff in bonds issued by weaker borrowers from the sector and prompting some of them to cancel debt sales.

    The most notable so far is that the listing of China Construction Bank’s blockchain-based debt issuance bonds has been delayed “at the request of the issuer” until further notice, according to a Nov. 13 statement from the Fusang exchange where they were due to be traded.

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    As CoinTelegraph’s Jack Martin reports, it is not currently clear when or if China Construction bank’s debt issuance sale will be rescheduled.

    A block-explorer scan of the smart-contract address associated with the sale shows no transactions, suggesting that the sale and issuance of the bonds has also been delayed.

    As Cointelegraph reported just last week, CCB is the second-largest bank in the world in terms of assets held.

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    image courtesy of CoinTelegraph

    It planned to raise up to $3 billion in total through the bond issuance, with an initial tranche of $58 million due to launch for live trading on Nov. 13.

    The bonds were set to be issued as digital assets on the Ethereum blockchain through an offshore branch of CCB on the small island of Labuan, Malaysia, which has a reputation as a tax haven.

    The digital tokens were to sell at a face value of $100 each, enabling both institutions and private investors to take part in the sale.

    The innovation is that these bonds are being used as tokenized certificates of deposit on the blockchain, which supports the issuance of such small-sum bonds; non-blockchain-based bonds are typically sold at higher minimums, and are therefore limited to professional investors or other banks.

    The Fusang exchange, where the bonds were due to be traded, is also regulated in Labuan, and supports cryptocurrency trading, meaning that investors could have exchanged Bitcoin (BTC) for dollars in order to take part in the sale.

    It is unknown at this stage when or if the sale will be rescheduled.

  • Georgia Secretary Of State Lashes Out Over 'Baseless Allegations' Regarding Signature Mismatches, Dominion
    Georgia Secretary Of State Lashes Out Over 'Baseless Allegations' Regarding Signature Mismatches, Dominion

    Tyler Durden

    Mon, 11/16/2020 – 18:50

    Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger, a Republican, lashed out on Monday over ‘baseless’ accusations coming from President Trump and his allies, including Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC), questioning the validity of ballots cast in the state, according to the Washington Post.

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    In a wide-ranging interview about the 2020 election, Raffensperger expressed exasperation with a string of baseless allegations coming from Trump and his allies about the integrity of the Georgia results, including  claims that Dominion Voting Systems, the Colorado-based manufacturer of Georgia’s voting machines, is a “leftist” company with ties to Venezuela that engineered thousands of Trump votes not to be counted. –Washington Post

    “Other than getting you angry, it’s also very disillusioning,” said Raffensperger, who says both he and his wife have received death threats in recent days. “particularly when it comes from people on my side of the aisle. Everyone that is working on this needs to elevate their speech. We need to be thoughtful and careful about what we say,” he added.

    While the Post doesn’t directly address it, the central issue regarding ballots is a March ‘Consent Decree’ enacted by Raffensperger and approved by Governor Brian Kemp, allowing for the ‘curing’ of ballots bearing signatures that don’t match state records, but only through a complicated process. Previously, mismatched ballots would be invalidated.

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    Raffensperger has been accused in a new lawsuit of ‘unilaterally, and without the approval or direction of the Georgia General Assembly,’ changing the process for handling absentee ballots – authority which rests with the legislature and not the Secretary of State or the Judiciary, which would therefore invalidate improperly counted absentee ballots.

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    Meanwhile, President Trump further knocked Georgia’s ongoing recount of roughly five million votes, tweeting on Monday that without the ‘all important signature match’ the recount is ‘MEANINGLESS.’

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    And according to RealClearPolitics‘ Paul Sperry, Raffensperger didn’t want to conduct a hand recount initially, but “wanted to just rescan the bar codes & be done with it.”

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    Meanwhile, Raffensperger says ‘there is currently no credible evidence that fraud occurred on a broad enough scale to affect the outcome of the election,’ and that the ongoing recount will ‘affirm’ the results of the initial count. He also says it will ‘prove the accuracy of the Dominion machines,’ with some counties having already reported that their hand recounts exactly match machine tallies.

    That said, a recount in one Georgia county has already found a disproportionate number of Trump votes.

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  • "Imperialism In Pumps": Greenwald & Johnstone Go Off As Media Gushes Over Presumed Biden Pick For SecDef
    "Imperialism In Pumps": Greenwald & Johnstone Go Off As Media Gushes Over Presumed Biden Pick For SecDef

    Tyler Durden

    Mon, 11/16/2020 – 18:30

    Independent commentator Caitlin Johnstone is raining on the parade of Liberals and Progressives who are hailing “barriers being broken” merely because Joe Biden is expected to pick a woman for the top Pentagon post in a historic first, blasting the spectacle as “Imperialism in Pumps” given presumed top choice Michele Flournoy hails from deep within the heart of the hawkish military-industrial complex. 

    “President-elect Joe Biden is expected to take a historic step and select a woman to head the Pentagon for the first time, shattering one of the few remaining barriers to women in the department and the presidential Cabinet,” the Associated Press reported gushingly this weekend.

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    Michele Flournoy, via The Boston Globe

    Apparently the “politically moderate” Flournoy is being viewed favorably by “political insiders” and career Pentagon officials. 

    But as a reminder here’s what “moderate” means in establishment NatSec-speak:

    Seen as a steady hand who favors strong military cooperation abroad, Flournoy, 59, has served multiple times in the Pentagon, starting in the 1990s and most recently as the undersecretary of defense for policy from 2009 to 2012. She serves on the board of Booz Allen Hamilton, a defense contractor…

    Johnstone is unscathing in her attack on the media and Liberal cheerleading:

    This word “moderate” which the AP news agency keeps bleating is of course complete nonsense. Standing in the middle ground between two corporatist warmongering parties does not make you a moderate, it makes you a corporatist warmonger. Flournoy is no more “moderate” than the “moderate rebels” in Syria which mass media outlets like AP praised for years until it became undeniable that they were largely Al Qaeda affiliates; the only reason such a position can be portrayed as mainstream and moderate is because vast fortunes have been poured into making it that way.

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    She highlights the nauseating spectacle of MSNBC and others attempting to frame it as a great achievement for feminism: 

    “White progressives training their fire on women and women of color who are under consideration to lead the nat sec departments makes me deeply uncomfortable about their allyship for those communities,” tweeted MSNBC contributor Mieke Eoyang. “Especially when the nat sec community is dominated by white men.”

    It’s only going to get dumber from here, folks.

    Let’s clear this up before the girl power parade starts: the first woman to head the US war machine will not be a groundbreaking pioneer of feminist achievement. She will be a mass murderer who wears Spanx. Her appointment will not be an advancement for women, it will be imperialism in pumps.

    Glenn Greenwald also pointed out the obvious in terms of what’s really going on here, deriding “the neoliberal scam of exploiting identity politics”.

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    Greenwald came under attack for so much as daring to question Flournoy’s potential appointment on the mere basis that one supposedly can’t possibly question the choice when “barriers are being broken” (and nevermind that a woman, Gina Haspel, currently runs the most powerful spy agency in the world).

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    Greenwald wrote of this tactic: “It belongs as a Hall of Fame exhibit showing why Democratic Party neoliberals and militarists are indescribably deceitful and repulsive.”

  • Daily Briefing – November 16, 2020
    Daily Briefing – November 16, 2020


    Tyler Durden

    Mon, 11/16/2020 – 18:25

    Real Vision managing editor, Ed Harrison, and senior editor, Ash Bennington, discuss the all-time highs being set in the S&P 500 and the Dow Jones Industrial Average as the news of Moderna’s vaccine being 94.5% effective in preventing COVID-19 breathes life into U.S. equities. Ed evaluates the price action through his risk-on framework, exploring the possibility that record cash on the sidelines, held by central banks, households, as well as private equity firms, could further buoy markets. He and Ash then discuss how the increasing lockdowns across the U.S. will likely stymie growth, weighing how these opposing forces will impact markets going forward. In the intro, Jack Farley reviews price action in equity and volatility markets and shows a clip from Mike Green’s interview with Jim Chanos, the first interview in Real Vision’s series “Paradigm Shift: Investment Ideas for a World in Flux.” To sign-up to Real Vision to watch these interviews, click here: https://www.realvision.com/paradigm-shift

Digest powered by RSS Digest

Nov 16

Today’s News 16th November 2020

  • Austria's New Hate Speech Law
    Austria’s New Hate Speech Law

    Tyler Durden

    Mon, 11/16/2020 – 02:00

    Authored by Judith Bergman via The Gatestone Institute,

    The Austrian government has presented a draft online hate speech law, the Communication Platforms Act, which, if passed, will limit free speech in the country. The Austrian government writes in the introduction to its proposed law:

    “The main reason for the development of this draft Act is the worrying development that the Internet and social media, in addition to the advantages that these new technologies and communication channels provide, have also established a new form of violence, and hate on the Internet is increasing in the form of insults, humiliation, false information and even threats of violence and death. The attacks are predominantly based on racist, xenophobic, misogynistic and homophobic motives. A comprehensive strategy and a set of measures are required that range from prevention to sanctions. This strategy is based on the two pillars of platform responsibility and victim protection, with the present draft Act relating to ensuring platform responsibility”.

    The proposed law is modelled on Germany’s much criticized NetzDG law, also known as the censorship law, which came into effect in January 2018 and requires social media companies to delete or block any online unlawful content within 24 hours or 7 days at the most, or face fines of up to 50 million euros.

    In May 2020, France adopted a similar law, known as the “Avia law“, also modelled on the German NetzDG law, which requires online platforms to remove reported “hateful content” — incitement to hatred, or discriminatory insult, on the grounds of race, religion, ethnicity, gender, sexual orientation or disability — within 24 hours. Failure to do so could result in fines of up to 1.25 million euros or 4% of the platform’s global revenue.

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    Similarly, the Austrian law requires “obviously” unlawful content to be deleted within 24 hours and other unlawful content within seven days. Failure to do so could lead to fines of up to 10 million euros ($12 million). Platforms must provide a reporting function for such content and react immediately to notifications.

    Just like Germany’s NetzDG law, the Austrian censorship law privatizes state censorship by requiring social media platforms to censor their users on behalf of the state. If the proposed law is passed, the freedom of speech of Austrians online will be subject to the arbitrary decisions of corporate entities, such as Twitter, Google and Facebook.

    With Austria’s draft online hate speech law, yet another European country is taking another step towards making online censorship an institutionalized feature of European hate speech laws. In Austria, according to Reuters, a surprising number of private associations would like to see even wider measures implemented: Austria’s association of digital service providers, ISPA, representing more than 200 companies including Google Austria and Facebook Germany welcomed the initiative against online hate speech but called for a joint European effort.

    “Only a uniform European regulation can become a successful standard and assert itself worldwide,” ISPA said in a statement. “Uncoordinated individual courses don’t get us any further here.”

    There has been, however, significant pushback against government censorship: In France, the Constitutional Council, a French court that examines legislation’s compatibility with the constitution, struck down multiple provisions of the “Avia law” in June because it infringed on freedom of expression. The Constitutional Council noted in its press release:

    “[According] to Article 11 of the Declaration of the Rights of Man and of the Citizen of 1789: ‘The free communication of thoughts and opinions is one of the most precious human rights: any citizen can therefore speak, write, print freely, except to answer for the abuse of this freedom in the cases determined by the law’. It is inferred from these provisions that with the present state of the means of communication and in view of the generalized development of online communication services to the public, as well as the importance of these services for participation in democratic life and the expression of ideas and opinions, this right implies the freedom to access and express yourself in these services…”

    “Freedom of expression and communication is all the more precious since its exercise is a condition of democracy and one of the guarantees of respect for other rights and freedoms. It follows that the interference with the exercise of that freedom must be necessary… and proportionate to the objective pursued”.

    The court found that multiple provisions of the “Avia law” infringed on freedom of expression because they were not “necessary or proportionate”.

    “We too often make bad laws with good intentions. Online platforms should not censor the freedom of expression,” said Chairman of the Senate Law Commission Philippe Bas after the Constitutional Council’s decision.

    It can only be hoped that European lawmakers eager to censor free speech online will heed the ruling of the French constitutional court.

  • "Rapidly Intensifying" Hurricane Iota Set To Slam Central America 
    “Rapidly Intensifying” Hurricane Iota Set To Slam Central America 

    Tyler Durden

    Mon, 11/16/2020 – 01:00

    Iota strengthened to a hurricane Sunday over the southwestern Caribbean Sea, expected to “bring potentially catastrophic winds, a life-threatening storm surge, and rainfall impacts to Central America,” reported the National Hurricane Center (NHC).

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    NHC’s 1000 ET Sunday update outlined how Iota is “rapidly intensifying” as it could be an extremely dangerous category 4 near the coasts of Nicaragua and Honduras.” 

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    The current landfall forecast says tropical conditions will arrive on the coasts of Honduras and Nicaragua by Monday morning. “This is an extremely dangerous situation with Iota expected to be category 4 at landfall!” NHC warned. 

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    Wind Speed Probabilities 

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    Hurricane Warning For Much Of Nicaragua and Honduras Coastline

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    Hurricane Model 

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    We explained on Saturday Iota would become a “major hurricane.” Weather models are forecasting the storm could dump 8 to 30 inches of rain on Honduras, northern Nicaragua, eastern Guatemala, and southern Belize by early next week. 

    In early November, Hurricane Eta battered the region (read: here & here), destroying upwards of 10% of the coffee crop in Central America, with Iota likely to push up the percentage to 25%.  

  • When Does A "Glitch" Become A Coup? It's Time to Regulate America's Fly-by-Night Voting Machine Monopoly
    When Does A “Glitch” Become A Coup? It’s Time to Regulate America’s Fly-by-Night Voting Machine Monopoly

    Tyler Durden

    Sun, 11/15/2020 – 23:50

    Authored by Robert Bridge via The Strategic Culture Foundation,

    It’s a frightening thing to consider, but the ultimate success of democracy in the United States largely hinges on the integrity of just three voting machine companies, which conduct their affairs with almost no government oversight and regulation. Unless that changes, the greatest democracy will start looking like a banana republic in the eyes of the world.

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    In January 2020, the CEOs of the three companies that produce over 80 percent of voting machines in the U.S. – Election Systems & Software (ES&S), Dominion Voting Systems and Hart InterCivic – were grilled by members of Congress over the question of security at the ballot box. Perhaps it would surprise exactly nobody that the 90-minute discussion focused almost entirely on the possibility of foreign actors, specifically China and Russia, interfering in the U.S. election system. Within such a predictably narrow frame of reference – Russia! Russia! Russia! – it becomes much easier to eliminate the possibility that domestic actors may also be tempted to tamper with the vote. At the same time, Russia provides the perfect smokescreen in the event someone gets caught with their hand in the election cookie jar. But already I digress.

    Currently, Dominion Voting Systems, the supplier of voting machines in 28 states, is coming under fierce scrutiny after it was reported that thousands of votes in one Michigan country intended for Donald Trump went to his challenger, Joe Biden. Officials were quick to point out that the ‘glitch’ was due to silly “human error,” as opposed to any mechanical flaws with the voting machines.

    According to Michigan state government website, “[T]he erroneous reporting of unofficial results … was a result of accidental error on the part of the Antrim County Clerk (who) accidentally did not update the software used to collect voting machine data and report unofficial results.”

    While I am no computer specialist, it is hard to imagine how a software update would have done anything to prevent one candidate from receiving the votes intended for another unless it was originally programmed to behave that way. But again, I am no expert.

    Another state that relies heavily on Dominion Voting Systems is Georgia, which received 30,000 new voting machines last year – “the largest rollout of elections equipment in U.S. history,” according to the Government Technology newsletter. Following the announcement of the $107 million contract, the same newsletter foretold of problems down the road, saying the “new voting system is expected to be quickly challenged in court by voters who say it remains vulnerable to hacking and tampering, despite the addition of paper ballots.”

    Those fears were quickly realized on the morning of Nov. 3, Election Day, when a technological glitch wreaked havoc on voting in two Georgia counties (a side note to this story is that Georgia officials blamed the abrupt pause in vote counting on a burst pipe at Atlanta’s State Farm Arena. Thus far, however, officials have not been able to produce any evidence that such an incident took place).

    While the source of the ‘glitch’ is still under investigation, one state ballot supervisor, Marcia Ridley, initially told POLITICO on Nov. 3 that Dominion, which prepares the poll books for counties before elections, “uploaded something last night, which is not normal, and it caused a glitch.” That reported incident prevented staff from programming the voter smart cards for the voting machines. Ridley continued, “That is something that they don’t ever do. I’ve never seen them update anything the day before the election.”

    However, Dominion officials, while admitting there was a problem with the poll books, deny there was any last-minute update made to the poll books after Oct. 31 (a press release by Dominion countered this and other allegations, including that the Pelosi family, the Feinstein family, or the Clinton Global Initiative has any relationship with the company).

    And here is where things get interesting.

    Ridley went on to say that Dominion assured her that “no system can be updated remotely without the knowledge of [the company],” indicating that an update could not have been made without detection. In other words, there appears to be a backdoor channel for Dominion Voting Systems to connect to the internet, and, as everybody knows, whatever appears on the internet is fair game for hackers.

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    In fact, it was exactly that concern that helped dissuade the state of Texas from also purchasing the dodgy Dominion system.

    In a letter from Brandon Hurley, a voting systems examiner, addressed to Keith Ingram, Director of Elections in Texas, it was determined that “some of the hardware in the Democracy 5.5-A System can be connected to the internet through Ethernet ports.”

    Later in the letter, it was emphasized again that “[W]ithout question, one or more of the components of the 5.5-A System can be connected to an external communication network and this can only be avoided if the end-user takes the proper precautions to prevent such a connection.”

    On Wednesday, Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger announced the state would perform a hand-recount of presidential ballots before certifying the results of its election. According to the New York Times, Biden leads the incumbent Trump by 14,000 votes.

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    Whatever the outcome of the 2020 presidential election, which also had to wrangle with the influx of millions of mail-in ballots amid a pandemic, it will certainly go down in the history books as one of the most chaotic, controversial and fraud-prone contests in U.S. history. The tragedy is that this fiasco, which is making America look ridiculous on the global stage, could have been avoided. There have been numerous attempts to sound the alarm on the vulnerability of voting machines to accurately tabulate the results of an election, and not least of all the ongoing Trump-Biden showdown, which will determine the political, cultural and economic trajectory of the United States long into the future.

    It is the opinion here that, judging by everything we know and don’t know about how the 2020 presidential election was organized, the only realistic option is to hold a nationwide recount. It is simply impossible to expect millions of American voters from either side of the political aisle to hold any doubts over an election of such tremendous consequence. Yes, a recount would be a massive undertaking, but the future peace and tranquility of the nation, already partisan to the breaking point, depends upon it. Once the recount is accomplished, the next task should be a congressional task force to examine ways of securing U.S. elections in the future, while holding the voting machine companies to severe government control and regulation. The days of monkey-wrenching U.S. elections must end.

  • Assassination Attempt On Armenian Prime Minister Thwarted By Security Forces
    Assassination Attempt On Armenian Prime Minister Thwarted By Security Forces

    Tyler Durden

    Sun, 11/15/2020 – 23:25

    Armenian security officials announced they had thwarted an active assassination attempt on Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan plotted by a cadre of his political opponents amid widespread outrage at Armenia signing a ceasefire with Azerbaijan which Baku hailed as a “capitulation” by Yerevan, essentially admitting defeat in Nagorno-Karabakh.

    The Armenian National Security Service (NSS) revealed in a statement that “one of the political opponents opposed to the government kept a large number of weapons, ammunition and explosives and reached an agreement with the leaders of the parties operating in Armenia and Karabakh to plan to seize power and kill the prime minister.”

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    Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan of Armenia. Source: Armenian Prime Minister Press Service via Associated Press

    “The leaders of parties, antigovernmental politicians, their supporters and former senior officials were preparing to attempt to assassinate a statesman and usurp power,” the statement said.

    Earlier last week enraged protesters had stormed Armenia’s parliament in Yerevan, after Pashinyan on Monday evening signed a Russia-brokered agreement with Azerbaijan and Russia for the immediate cessation of hostilities in Karabakh. This was at a moment the Azerbaijan Army had made undeniable and significant gains.

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    According to Reuters, “Pashinyan had come under pressure with thousands of demonstrators protesting since Tuesday and demanding he resign over a ceasefire that secured territorial advances for Azerbaijan in Nagorno-Karabakh after six weeks of fighting.”

    Pashinyan has responded to widespread anger among the Armenian public by saying he had little choice but to sign the agreement to prevent further territorial losses and major loss of life.

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    Few details were given as to how far the assassination plot advanced or how precisely it was uncovered, but arrests were made: “The NSS said its former head Artur Vanetsyan, the former head of the Republican Party parliamentary faction Vahram Baghdasaryan and war volunteer Ashot Minasyan were under arrest,” Reuters reported.

    Vanetsyan was also former head of Armenia’s national security service, suggesting the plot entered high levels of the government.

  • What Is John Brennan So Worried About?
    What Is John Brennan So Worried About?

    Tyler Durden

    Sun, 11/15/2020 – 23:00

    Authored by Ray McGovern via ConsortiumNews.com,

    Former CIA Director John Brennan is apparently so worried that Donald Trump might release certain classified intelligence that he suggested this week that Vice President Mike Pence and the cabinet remove Trump via the 25th amendment.

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    Brennan appeared this week on both CNN and MSNBC to spread alarm about what Trump might do as he continues to contest the election results and appoints new people at Defense, NSA (and possibly CIA) who may do his bidding. 

    Brennan warned on CNN that it was “very, very worrisome” that Trump “is just very unpredictable now … like a cornered cat — tiger. And he’s going to lash out.”

    Brennan told MSNBC he was worried that Trump has called for the “wholesale declassification of intelligence in order to further his own political interests.”

    Whom would he lash out at and what classified documents might Brennan be referring to?

    The CIA’s point man at The Washington Post, David Ignatius, has provided the answer:

    “President Trump’s senior military and intelligence officials have been warning him strongly against declassifying information about Russia that his advisers say would compromise sensitive collection methods and anger key allies.

    An intense battle over this issue has raged within the administration in the days before and after the Nov. 3 presidential election. Trump and his allies want the information public because they believe it would rebut claims that Russian President Vladimir Putin supported Trump in 2016. That may sound like ancient history, but for Trump it remains ground zero — the moment when his political problems began.”

    Protecting “sources and methods” is a red herring. They can be redacted from a classified document. It’s the content of these files that has Brennan extremely nervous as they might reveal Brennan’s role in the Russiagate scandal. Of course, Brennan invoked the old trope of “national security” when it appears it’s his own security he’s worried about.

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    As we noted at a similar juncture in March 2018 (in “Former CIA Chief Brennan Running Scared”), Brennan’s foremost worry — then, as now — was that Trump was about to expose him to the disgrace that befell ex-FBI Deputy Director Andrew McCabe for malfeasance in connection with Russiagate.

    The president had just fired McCabe for repeatedly lying, and Brennan had good reason to worry. That was before the true extent of the roles McCabe, his boss, former FBI Director James Comey, and Brennan played in the WMD-style fabrication of “Russiagate” had became more fully understood.

    Brennan landed on his MSNBC perch as a paid commentator on Feb. 2, 2018 and was riding high with adulation from the likes of former UN Ambassador Samantha Power, who publicly warned Trump that it is “not a good idea to piss off John Brennan.”

    Even back then, however, storm clouds were gathering. House Intelligence Committee Chairman Devin Nunes (R-CA), who knew much more than he revealed, was warning of legal consequences for Russiagate conspirators.

    Referring to the weavers and tailors of Russiagate, Nunes told reporter Sharyl Attkisson on Feb. 18, 2018:

    “If they need to be put on trial, we will put them on trial. The reason Congress exists is to oversee these agencies that we created.”

    Dismissive of such warnings, Brennan accused Trump on May 17, 2018 of “moral turpitude” and predicted, with an alliterative flourish, that he would end up “as a disgraced demagogue in the dustbin of history.” 

    As the Russiagate saga has unfolded, however, it has become abundantly clear that there is more than enough moral turpitude to go around. As discussed below, there may be a reasonable hope that documentary evidence — chapter and verse — about Russiagate turpitude will see the light of day if Trump summons the backbone to get unimpeachable evidence into the open.

    In my view, this is what seems to have Brennan on tenterhooks.

    What Else Did Esper Refuse to Do?

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    John Brennan in Oval Office, Jan. 4, 2010. (White House photo by Pete Souza)

    This is the big question. In the CNN interview, Brennan was not artful enough to disguise what seems to be his major worry. Right after complaining that complacent observers are “missing what is a very, very worrisome development,” the ex-CIA chief added:

    “And I think it’s quite apparent from reporting that Mark Esper has stood up to Donald Trump repeatedly. Who knows what else has he [‘terminated’ Secretary of Defense Esper] refused to do?”

    (For one thing, according to Politico, Esper clashed with Trump over pulling U.S. troops out of Afghanistan.)

    Brennan added:

    “Who knows what [freshly appointed Acting Secretary of Defense] Chris Miller is going to do if Donald Trump does give some kind of order that really is counter to what I think our national security interests need to be?”

    There are abundant — and disquieting (to Brennan) — clues to this, in the events unfolding over the past several days.

    For starters, there is the role Ignatius (as close to Brennan as a Siamese twin) played in setting an unusually transparent table to interpret Brennan’s CNN interview the morning after — curiously, without mentioning the interview itself.

    (Yes, this is the same David Ignatius who reported on the leaked, late-Dec. 2016 telephone conversation between Russian Ambassador Sergey Kislyak and Gen. Michael Flynn, which was used to trap Flynn and, if possible, put him in prison. After all, Flynn was a major threat. He knew — or would have been able to find out — where most of the Russiagate bodies were buried. It was imperative that he be removed quickly from his position as Trump’s national security adviser.)

    Here are Ignatius’s main points:

    • Senior military and intelligence officials have been warning Trump against declassifying information about Russia that would compromise sensitive collection methods and anger allies.

    • Trump wants the information out “because he thinks it would rebut claims that Putin supported Trump in 2016 — how his political problems began.”

    • CIA Director Gina Haspel is against release; said to be determined to “protect sources and methods.”

    • NSA Director Gen. Paul Nakasone directly opposed White House efforts to release the information.

    • Defense Secretary Mark Esper — just “terminated” on Monday — supported Nakasone’s view, warning of “harm to national security and specific harm to the military.”

    • Christopher Miller is named to replace Esper.

    • Michael Ellis, former chief counsel to Nunes, has just been installed as general counsel at NSA.

    Nunes: Out From Under the Bus?

    After being “thrown under the bus” by Trump more than once in his attempts to expose the crimes of Russiagate, Nunes may now harbor some hope that his patience and loyalty will be rewarded after all. In October Trump ordered Russiagate documents declassified and nothing happened. The next few weeks will tell. The omens are better than before.

    Not only will Ellis be general counsel at NSA, reportedly over the objections of Gen. Nakasone, but Kashyap Patel, a longtime Russiagate skeptic and former Nunes aide on the House Intelligence Committee, is replacing Esper’s chief of staff at the Pentagon. Patel is said to already have a “very close” working relationship with Miller, the acting defense secretary.  (And rumors persist that Haspel’s ouster is next.) 

    In addition, former National Security Council official Ezra Cohen-Watnick has been named acting undersecretary of defense for intelligence. Cohen-Watnick not only reaps close ties to Nunes; he was also a top aide to Flynn during the latter’s abbreviated tenure as national security adviser.

    Have these folks been appointed to help start a new war? They seem better placed to try to finish an old one — namely, Russiagate. They would certainly be well placed to execute a Trump order to declassify and release R-gate-related documents that have been Waiting for Godot.

    This sends shivers up the spines of those with much to fear from such disclosures. At the same time, the formidable ability of the bureaucracy to resist is well known to all concerned.

    Esper Slow-Walked Out the Door

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    Former Secretary of Defense Mark Esper at the Pentagon, July 29, 2020. (DoD, Chad J.McNeeley)

    It appears Esper may have been slow-walking a White House request to release information gathered and stored by the National Security Agency, which could document what Trump calls the “hoax” of Russiagate, and the criminal behavior of its perpetrators — including the role prime mover Brennan may have had.

    It may be hard to believe, but the NSA intercepts and stores every electronic communication. All Trump has to do is to have newly appointed acting Pentagon chief Miller order Gen. Nakasone to release materials spelling out chapter and verse on the Russiagate operations orchestrated by Brennan, Comey, and ex-National Intelligence Director James Clapper. Nakasone reports to the secretary of defense.

    Don’t be misled; virtually all of it can be released with ZERO danger to intelligence “sources and methods.” But release won’t happen if Trump continues to just whine to Fox News, or he “authorizes” release without follow-up (he’s already done that — to no effect).

    What Brennan seems to fear is that it might dawn on Trump that he lost the election and has little time left to act. As a lame-duck he might want to go out with a flourish: revenge against the intelligence establishment that undermined him for four years with its Russiagate fable.

    Trump might awake one day to find that someone has scrawled on his mirror, “Hey, I thought YOU were the president.” At that point, there would be an outside chance he might act like one, and Brennan and co-conspirators might find themselves going the way of McCabe.

    In such circumstances, establishment media can be expected to make a Herculean effort to suppress the (highly embarrassing, including for the media) truth about Russiagate.

    It certainly did an amazingly effective job suppressing “Huntergate.” Odds are they could succeed this time around too.

    Like those huge banks ten years ago, Russiagate may be too-big-to-fail. But, at least, the documentary evidence would be out there for those who “can handle the truth” — and for future historians with some courage. This is not about the election, which has been decided. But about putting on the record intelligence interference in the last election and subsequent administration, so that future agencies might think twice about doing it again.

    By finally ordering the release of such documents, sanitized in those few cases in which it might be necessary, Trump may enable anyone opened minded about Russiagate to be informed in a documented way, about what actually happened during that long-lingering, dark chapter of our recent history.

    And, in the process, Russiagaters might be able to overcome their instinctual reluctance to accept the pernicious nature of the National Security State. And that would be for the best.

    *  *  *

    Please Contribute to Consortium News on its 25th Anniversary . Donate securely with PayPal  here. 

  • 86% Of Trump Voters Say Biden 'Did Not Legitimately Win' Election
    86% Of Trump Voters Say Biden ‘Did Not Legitimately Win’ Election

    Tyler Durden

    Sun, 11/15/2020 – 22:35

    The vast majority of Trump voters think that Joe Biden’s predicted election win was illegitimate, and that we’ll never know the true outcome.

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    According to the latest YouGov/The Economist poll, 86% of Trump voters say Biden “did not legitimately win the election,” while 73% say that we’ll “never know the real outcome of this election.”

    The poll also reveals that a majority of voters (53%) thought that President Trump would win vs. Biden (47%), according to Economist data journalist, G. Elliott Morris.

    Meanwhile, 88% of Trump voters say they believe that “illegal immigrants voted fraudulently in 2016 and tried again in 2020,” while 90% believed that “mail ballots are being manipulated to favor Joe Biden.“

    Morris adds that 46% of Republicans think “some people are not smart enough to vote” (vs. 27% of Dems), and 43% of Republicans also think that people should have to pass a test before voting (vs. 15% of Dems). 

    89% of Republicans also think Trump should contest the outcome of the election in court, while 62% of his voters think it will change the outcome.

    Less than half of those polled believe there will be a peaceful transition of power in the event Biden is sworn in.

    It should be noted that this YouGov/Economist poll is in stark contrast to a recent Reuters poll, which found that 40% of Republicans say Trump won. Perhaps the difference lies in the distinction between YouGov’s sampling of “Trump voters” vs. “Republicans” – which would ostensibly include so-called ‘never-Trumpers.’

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  • Biden's Cancer Charity Took In Millions, Spent Big On Salaries But Nothing On Research
    Biden’s Cancer Charity Took In Millions, Spent Big On Salaries But Nothing On Research

    Tyler Durden

    Sun, 11/15/2020 – 22:10

    Authored by Matt Margolis via PJMedia.com,

    Fake charities are not just for the Clintons, it seems, as a report from the New York Post reveals that a cancer charity started by former Vice-President Joe Biden spent most of the millions it raised on salaries, but gave out no grants in its first two years.

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    The mission of the Biden Cancer Initiative, which was founded in 2017, was to “develop and drive implementation of solutions to accelerate progress in cancer prevention, detection, diagnosis, research and care and to reduce disparities in cancer outcomes.” The charity took in nearly $5 million in contributions in 2017 and 2018, according to IRS filings, but spent most of it, just over $3 million, on the salaries of former Washington D.C. aides who were hired for the charity.

    The charity took in $4,809,619 in contributions in fiscal years 2017 and 2018, and spent $3,070,301 on payroll in those two years. The group’s president, Gregory Simon, raked in $429,850 in fiscal 2018 (July 1, 2018 to June 30, 2019), according to the charity’s most recent federal tax filings.

    Simon, a former Pfizer executive and longtime health care lobbyist who headed up the White House’s cancer task force in the Obama administration, saw his salary nearly double from the $224,539 he made in fiscal 2017, tax filings show.

    Danielle Carnival, former chief of staff for Obama’s cancer initiative, the Cancer Moonshot Task Force, who took home $258,207 in 2018.

    The rest of the charity’s income was spent on expenses like travel and conferences.

    Gregory Simon claims that the purpose of the charity is not to give out grants, but to “accelerate” treatment for all, whatever that means.

    Joe Biden’s son Beau Biden died of brain cancer in 2015.

    The charity effectively stopped running once Joe Biden started his presidential campaign. According to Simon, that’s when the “charity” floundered.

    “We tried to power through but it became increasingly difficult to get the traction we needed to complete our mission,” Simon said in July 2019.

    The Biden Cancer Initiative remains unrated by the Charity Navigator, an organization that analyzes charities to determine which effectively use their donations for their stated cause.

  • Navy Pushes Ahead With 500-Ship Plan To 'Counter China & Russia' In Wake Of Esper Firing
    Navy Pushes Ahead With 500-Ship Plan To ‘Counter China & Russia’ In Wake Of Esper Firing

    Tyler Durden

    Sun, 11/15/2020 – 21:45

    In the Washington beltway world of defense spending and expansion, there’s always room to “spend more” no matter which administration or DoD leadership is at the helm. This trend is on display following last week’s Trump firing of Secretary of Defense Mark Esper, and his replacement with Christopher C. Miller.

    An ambitious plan to greatly expand the number of ships in America’s naval arsenal put in place by Esper will not be impacted by the latest dramatic turnover in top Pentagon leadership, as Military.com reports:

    Plans to build a 500-ship Navy are still intact as the Trump administration ushered in a host of new leaders at the Pentagon this week – though the top admiral overseeing shipbuilding says challenges remain.

    Battle Force 2045, Defense Secretary Mark Esper’s ambitious plan to nearly double the size of the Navy fleet, is still underway. Esper was fired by President Donald Trump’s this week, and several new civilian leaders were installed to replace him and other top policy staffers.

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    USS Roosevelt via US Navy

    While China for example has many more total naval ships than the United States, the US Navy is still unrivaled in the total size and technological advantage of its force, given it has nearly a dozen large nuclear-powered fleet carriers and a handful of others that can be deemed carriers, compared to China’s two.

    Esper’s plan calls for an active 500-ship fleet by 2045.

    Vice Adm. William Galinis, the head of Naval Sea Systems Command, recently told reporters that nothing will change in terms of Esper’s plan for naval expansion:

    “I don’t see any change to that right now,” Galinis said. “We’ll have to see how things play out over the next several weeks here, but I don’t see any change.”

    “The underlying analytics and the requirements [of Battle Force 2045], I think, remain sound,” Galinis said at a Thursday defense conference. “How we meet those requirements, that’s a topic for further discussion.”

    Esper’s ambitious plan also calls for the construction of three Virginia-class submarines per year, including 140 and 240 unmanned ships, which in prior statements he said was necessary to counter growing Chinese and Russian maritime expansion of their fleets.

    Adm. Galinis said there may be “capacity challenges” in terms of such rapid ship-building:

    “In terms of the industrial base’s ability to build those ships, I think there are some capacity challenges out there,” he said. “… Especially when we start talking about maybe going to three Virginias a year, and what it takes to transition from to two to three per year.

    “There’s some capacity issues not just within the shipyard, but the supply base as well.”

    In September the now former Defense Secretary Esper touted that the US maintains complete naval superiority over China and that the latter will never close the gap.

    He said at the time time, “I want to make clear that China cannot match the United States when it comes to naval power.”

  • "This Pandemic Was The Final Blow To Our Collective Notion Of Money As Something Real"
    “This Pandemic Was The Final Blow To Our Collective Notion Of Money As Something Real”

    Tyler Durden

    Sun, 11/15/2020 – 21:20

    By Eric Peters, CIO of One River Asset Management

    “The shift to digital forms of currencies is inevitable,” declared PayPal CEO, Dan Schulman, introducing crypto trading to all his US customers, ahead of his payments roll-out to 26mm global merchants.

    “Bringing with it, clear advantages in terms of financial inclusion and access; efficiency, speed and resilience of the payments system,” he added, talking his book. “And providing the ability for governments to disburse funds to citizens quickly,” concluded PayPal’s CEO, saving the most important bit for the end – classic Steve Jobs style.

    You see, there will be many legacies of this pandemic, which miraculously “ended” with Pfizer’s announcement. Daily life will return to something more normal, perhaps even euphoric, as has been the case throughout human history when our plagues subside.

    But what will never return is the way that we once looked at money. This coronavirus was the final blow to our collective notion of money as something real. After agonizing for years about multi-hundred billion-dollar deficits, America’s Treasury more or less borrowed $3 trillion from our central bank. We gave that money to ourselves.

    But the world didn’t end. The dollar didn’t collapse. Interest rates remained low. Inflation did too. Stock naturally surged. The rich got richer, the poor got poorer. From this blow-off top in inequality, we begin the next stage of a transition that started with the 2016 election and surely has a decade to run.

    And while no one knows precisely what will happen, we can be quite sure that governments will disburse funds to citizens quickly. Digitally. And we can be certain that a dollar in a decade’s time will be worth a fraction of what it’s worth today.

    Anchors

    Britain was first to devalue in Sept 1931. Others followed. The 1929 market crash had worked through the system, grinding insidiously, turning what had been a roaring boom to bust. Back then, currencies were backed by metal. Governments understandably feared that without an anchor like gold, of which there was limited supply, the nation’s citizens would easily lose faith in the value of a piece of colorful paper. And it is likely that governments also had little faith in their own prudence when it came to deficit spending, were it unconstrained by a golden anchor.

    “We have gold because we cannot trust governments,” said President Herbert Hoover in early 1933 with the price of gold at $20/ounce. In April of 1933 FDR abandoned the gold standard and outlawed the hoarding of gold coins, bullion, and certificates. The dollar fell over 10% relative to European currencies that had already devalued, as it readjusted to the surprise move by the US.  In 1934, FDR reset the price of gold from $20.67/ounce to $35/ounce. Each devaluation helped the US expand credit, stimulate trade, and reflate the economy.

    Gold prices were then steady for 38-years. But naturally, nothing is that stable. So imbalances quietly grew. In 1971, beset by deficits, inflation and a looming gold run, Nixon ended the convertibility of the dollar to gold at the $35/ounce rate.

    This freed the price to trade at whatever sellers and buyers saw fit. By 1980 the gold that traded at $35/ounce 9yrs earlier hit a high of $875/ounce. That’s what the inflationary 1970s did to the value of the US dollar. And today, after decades of policy intended to sustain slow but steady inflation, gold trades at $1,889.

  • China Retail Sales Disappoint, Despite Expected Golden-Week Boost
    China Retail Sales Disappoint, Despite Expected Golden-Week Boost

    Tyler Durden

    Sun, 11/15/2020 – 21:07

    Amid sudden domestic defaults, liquidity shortfalls, a soaring yuan, and overseas economics lockdowns, tonight’s smorgasbord of data is expected to show a continued recovery in China’s economy (after a disappointing Q3 GDP and PMI), as US data begins to falter.

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    Source: Bloomberg

    The strongest yuan in well over two years is likely not helping the export situation…

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    Source: Bloomberg

    But, despite the massive credit impulse, China’s engine of growth remains relatively lackluster as it appears whatever credit is being created is filling holes and being put to productive (multiplier-driving) use in the broader economy…

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    Source: Bloomberg

    So, the question for tonight is, has the slowdown in the rest of the world started to impact China’s rebound or is a domestic revival fueling a ‘virus-free’ return to normal in the communist nation? Simply put, all eyes will be on retail sales…

    Interestingly, right before the bulk of the data, China Home Prices printed a disappointing slowdown (though as can be clearly seen, prices haven’t actually fallen on MoM basis since early 2015)…

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    Source: Bloomberg

    One thing to note is that the nationwide eight-day Golden Week holiday likely pushed October retail sales up by 5%, and on the other side of the coin, the longer-than-usual Golden Week holiday cut into working days (potentially impacting industrial production)

    Here’s the rest of the data:

    • China Industrial Production YTD MEET +1.8% YoY vs +1.8% exp vs +1.2% prior

    • China Retail Sales YTD MEET -5.9% YoY vs -5.9% exp vs -7.2% prior

    • China Fixed Asset Investment YTD BEAT +1.8% YoY vs +1.6% exp vs +0.8% prior

    • China Property Investment YTD BEAT +6.0% YoY vs +6.0% exp vs +5.6% prior

    • China Surveyed Jobless Rate MEET 5.3% vs 5.3% exp vs 5.4% prior

    Most notably the jobless rate is back at pre-COVID levels…

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    Source: Bloomberg

    However, the biggest headline of the night is the disappointment in year-over-year retail sales, rising 4.3% YoY vs +5.0% expected (though accelerating over September’s +3.3%)…

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    Source: Bloomberg

    Bloomberg reports the retail sales break down shows petroleum was down by 11% but the other categories were all positive. While restaurant and catering grew 0.8% there were big gains for food (8.8%), beverages (16.9%), clothing (12.2%) and cosmetics (18.3%) among others.

    The supply side of the economy remains strong from the looks of things, but the consumer failed to live up to economists’ expectations.

    Except, elsewhere in Asia tonight, Japan’s economy rebounded more strongly than expected from its record crash during the pandemic as businesses reopened, trade roared back and government stimulus helped fuel a jump in consumer spending. Gross domestic product grew an annualized 21.4% in the three months through September from the prior quarter, the Cabinet Office said Monday, reporting the fastest growth since 1968. Economists had forecast an 18.9% expansion.

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    Source: Bloomberg

    Finally, we note that China’s economy is still expected to grow by 2% in 2020 and 8% in 2021 – a sharp contrast to other major economies across the region, where most are expected to contract sharply.

  • Asia-Pacific Countries Sign World's Largest Free Trade Deal In "Coup For China"
    Asia-Pacific Countries Sign World’s Largest Free Trade Deal In “Coup For China”

    Tyler Durden

    Sun, 11/15/2020 – 20:55

    Nothing less than a major milestone in global economic history and a huge victory for China over increasing US regional hegemony has been realized on Sunday with the signing of the biggest free trade deal ever among fifteen Asia Pacific Nations.

    Called the Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership, or RCEP, the agreement was signed virtually during the annual summit of the 10-nation Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN), and effectively establishes the world’s largest trading block that is expected to encompass almost one-third of all global economic activity, crucially without the United States.

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    Via Grain.org

    It’s being further seen as a massive blow to four years of both Trump’s America First policy and simultaneously the trade war and increasing attempts to convince other large regional powers like India to isolate China (though India is notably absent from the RCEP). 

    The trade pact involves ten ASEAN bloc member nations including Brunei, Cambodia, Indonesia, Laos, Malaysia, Myanmar, the Philippines, Singapore, Thailand and Vietnam – and additionally their trade partners Australia, China, Japan, New Zealand, and South Korea.

    China’s Premier Li Keqiang was cited in state media as hailing a “victory against protectionism” and in international media reports it is being called “a coup for China” which will bolster Chinese claims that it remains a “champion of globalization and multilateral cooperation”.

    “The signing of the RCEP is not only a landmark achievement of East Asian regional cooperation, but also a victory of multilateralism and free trade,” Li said, after it’s been in negotiations for eight years.

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    The AP summarized of the agreement:

    The accord will take already low tariffs on trade between member countries still lower, over time, and is less comprehensive than an 11-nation trans-Pacific trade deal that President Donald Trump pulled out of shortly after taking office.

    …It will take time to fully assess exact details of the agreement encompassing tariff schedules and rules for all 15 countries involved — the tariffs schedule just for Japan is 1,334 pages long.

    It is not expected to go as far as the European Union in integrating member economies but does build on existing free trade arrangements.

    India was the only country invited to the table but that didn’t sign the deal (and then there’s Taiwan, also not part of the deal).

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    Closing ceremony of ASEAN summit being held online in Hanoi on November 15, 2020. Getty Images

    Yet clearly this marks the final death knell for both Obama’s so-called ‘pivot to Asia’ and Trump’s anti-Chinese decoupling initiatives. In the days leading up to the expected signing on Sunday the major American networks were noticeably quiet about it.

    As The Wall Street Journal now forewarns: “The deal signed Sunday increases pressure on Mr. Biden to deepen U.S. trade engagement in the Asia-Pacific region. He warned last year that if America doesn’t write the rules of the road, China will, and said he would try to renegotiate the TPP, but hasn’t taken a firm position either way.”

  • Sen. Bernie Sanders Confirms He's Seeking Labor Secretary Position
    Sen. Bernie Sanders Confirms He’s Seeking Labor Secretary Position

    Tyler Durden

    Sun, 11/15/2020 – 20:30

    Authored by Jack Phillips via The Epoch Times,

    Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) said he has spoken with Democratic nominee Joe Biden’s team about becoming the secretary of labor should Biden win the election.

    “Have you had any conversations with anyone from the Biden transition team about a possible Cabinet post?” CNN host Jake Tapper asked the self-described socialist senator on Sunday.

    Sanders responded in the affirmative and confirmed he spoke with Biden’s team, and said he “want[s] to do [his] best in whatever capacity, as a senator or in the administration, to protect the working families in this country.”

    Numerous media outlets have declared the presidential winner as Biden. The Epoch Times will not call the race for either Biden or President Donald Trump until all results are certified and any legal challenges are resolved.

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    Sara Nelson, the head of the Association of Flight Attendants, told NBC News that Sanders reached out to her for support.

    Several other progressive politicians have reportedly attempted to reach out to Biden in recent days. However, with Republicans likely to control the Senate following two runoff elections in Georgia in January, it’s entirely possible that their nominations would be blocked in the upper chamber if Biden is victorious.

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    Some business groups have expressed anxiety over the prospect of Sanders having a prominent role in the federal government.

    “Naming such a polarizing choice would be a pretty big bait-and-switch for a president-elect who ran on bringing the country together to solve problems,” said Matt Haller, senior vice president of government relations and public affairs at the International Franchise Association, according to The Hill in a report last week.

    “This election said many things, but it was not a mandate by voters to turn America into a country that rejects capitalism – just ask the House incumbents who were thrown out of office in purple districts for being unable to separate themselves from the lunatic fringe agenda,” he added.

    Aric Newhouse, senior vice president of policy and government relations at the National Association of Manufacturers, added that bipartisanship is sorely needed, suggesting that he doesn’t favor a left-wing direction.

    Biden’s team has not responded to a request for comment, and it also declined to comment to The Hill on the prospect of Sanders joining.

  • Traders On Edge As China Faces $900 Billion Liquidity Shortage
    Traders On Edge As China Faces $900 Billion Liquidity Shortage

    Tyler Durden

    Sun, 11/15/2020 – 20:13

    Update: facing a potentially calamitous liquidity shortage, China buckled and despite hawkish commentary from its central bankers, moments ago the PBOC announced that it would offer a whopping 800 billion in MLF, which was not only vastly greater than the CNY 200BN whisper number, but was 200 billion more than the currently maturing MLF amount of 600 billion, indicating that what PBOC Deputy Governor Liu Guoqiang said recently when he warned that exiting easing measures was “a matter of time” and “necessary,” was just a jawboning placeholder, and with China finding itself in a funding scramble, the PBOC not only delivered but left quite a bit of liquidity on top.

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    * * *

    In all the recent noise surrounding the presidential elections, the pandemic, the state of US fiscal stimulus, and a possible vaccine it is easy to forget that what really matters for the global economy is neither US fiscal or monetary stimulus, nor who the US president is, but rather what China does: after all, recall that it was China’s epic credit expansion in 2009 that successfully pulled the world out of the post-Lehman depression, with Chinese credit injections in the past decade putting the Fed and all other developed central banks to shame. Nowhere is this clearer than in a comparison of total assets in the US vs Chinese banking sector where some may be surprised to learn that China’s banking sector is more than twice as large as that of the US.

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    It’s also why we – and many others – have repeatedly said that what really matters for the world economy, and for global reflation is China’s credit impulse, which as we have shown recently has soared in recent months, and a delayed correlation with 10Y yields suggests that a major spike in real 10Y rates is coming.

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    We bring all this up, because despite the recently concluded Communist Party Plenum according to which everything is great, lately China’s financial system is experiencing some major glitches starting with what we discussed earlier today, the unexpected default of the AAA-rated state-owned coal mining company, Yongcheng Coal and Electricity Holding Group, which came as a shock to most investors and sent state-backed local debt – previously seen as sacrosanct due to an implied state backstop – tumbling as markets repriced the long-running assumption that Beijing would never allow SOEs to fail.

    There is another problem: as Bloomberg writes, increasingly weary trader eyes are now looking at China’s central bank for any signal of potential monetary easing, as a $900 billion funding shortage raises concerns over tighter liquidity.

    The first clue should come in hours, if not minutes when early on Monday (local time) the People’s Bank of China is expected to at least offset most of the 600 billion yuan ($91 billion) of policy loans coming due this month. The funds, which were offered by the central bank a year ago via the medium-term lending facility, are just about 10% of the total amount local banks need to repay debt and buy government bonds by the end of 2020.

    As China is among the first countries in the world to consider reversing emergency stimulus measures deployed to support markets in the wake of the coronavirus outbreak – now that its economy is reportedly humming – a withdrawal of liquidity by the state (which lately has been cracking down on excess leverage everywhere from Evergrande to the fintech industry) may stoke fears of tighter monetary policy as the economy recovers from the pandemic. Alternatively, a meaningful net injection would be viewed a sign that Beijing is committed to ensuring ample cash supply and is not willing to risk tipping over the boat at a time when Chinese investor nerves are already frayed in the aftermath of the shocking pulling of the 800x+ oversubscribed Ant Financial IPO (which as the WSJ reported last week, followed an order from Xi Jinping himself as China’s leader seeks to put upstart and outspoken local billionaires in their place).

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    However, how the PBOC treats the maturing 600bn yuan MLF (whether it rolls it in a similar size loan, or shtinks it) is just the start, because as Bloomberg explains demand for cash will surge in the coming weeks, as banks will need to repay more debt and buy newly issued government bonds, while facing yet another 600bn MLF maturity.

    In total, a combined 1.2 trillion yuan in MLF funds is due in November and December, or roughly a third of this year’s total. On top of that, lenders are set to repay at least 3.7 trillion yuan of short-term interbank debt and use another 1 trillion yuan to buy sovereign bonds by end-2020.

    Said otherwise, if Beijing wishes to, it could drain as much as $6 trillion, or roughly $900 billion, in liquidity from the Chinese financial system in the next 6 weeks.

    While under normal conditions, traders would hardly be worried that Beijing would do anything but continue the liquidity status quo, recent comments from officials have sparked funding concerns.

    Last week, PBOC Deputy Governor Liu Guoqiang said exiting easing measures was “a matter of time” and “necessary,” remarks that helped send China’s sovereign yield to a one-year high. The rhetoric came as recent data suggest the nation’s economic recovery has been on track. Furthermore, while total credit growth remained stable it took a modest seasonal dip in October.

    “The PBOC’s comments struck a hawkish tone, suggesting money supply will be tightened,” said Australia & New Zealand Banking Group economist Xing Zhaopeng. This means that any net injection less than 200 billion yuan on Monday won’t be enough to soothe nerves on tight liquidity: “We see the 10-year government bond yield more likely to rise in the fourth quarter”, Xing added as traders brace for a continued tightening in China’s financial conditions.

    While we will know shortly if the PBOC’s liquidity generosity persists, concerns about tighter liquidity have already driven banks to demand a higher yield when lending to each other. The interest rate on one-year negotiable certificates of deposits issued by AAA rated banks has climbed to the highest since June 2019.

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    The overnight repo rate also jumped to the most elevated since January on Thursday according to Bloomberg data, providing further evidence of the rising thirst for liquidity. On Friday, the PBOC responded by adding 160 billion yuan on a net basis into the financial system via seven-day repurchase agreements, the biggest injection since Sept. 22.

    That’s hardly enough, however, with much more liquidity needed.

    China’s massive commercial banks – the biggest buyer of Chinese government bonds – now have less idle cash to invest in the fixed-income market, and some of them even need to shed their holdings of the securities for funding, according to Bloomberg. Worries over cash supply have already led to a sell-off in sovereign bonds with short tenors, which are more sensitive to shifts in liquidity conditions.

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    That has helped narrow the gap between one- and 10-year yields to near the smallest since September 2019.

    Naturally, the liquidity shortage has been bad news for bond bulls, and the yield on 10-year Chinese sovereign bonds has jumped about 8 basis points so far in November, in part tracking the concurrent rebound in “reflationary” sentiment in the US. That came after the notes just posted the longest stretch of monthly declines since 2007 in October, making them worst performers in Asia this year.

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    While US traders have not had to worry about Chinese financial conditions for a long time, having been distracted by everything from the election, to covid, to fiscal stimulus negoatiations, all those risks are well-known and priced in, the real risk is what China could do in the coming days and weeks if it decides to suddenly turn off the liquidity spigot. A worst case scenario could have dire consequences for global capital markets due to China’s position as the hub in the global liquification/reflationary apparatus.

  • Here Are The Companies That Will Benefit The Most From A Covid Vaccine
    Here Are The Companies That Will Benefit The Most From A Covid Vaccine

    Tyler Durden

    Sun, 11/15/2020 – 19:40

    In his latest Weekly Kickstart note published late on Friday, Goldman’s David Kostin correctly notes that with all eyes on two major macro catalysts in recent weeks –the US elections and the potential for imminent vaccine approval – investors had mostly overlooked the 3Q earnings season. According to Kostin, this “lack of focus” was reflected in the unusual price performance of stocks beating on EPS during the recently-concluded earnings season, namely that whereas in the past, stocks that surpass consensus expectations typically outperform the S&P 500 by 100bps the trading day after reporting, this quarter those firms outperformed by just 9bp, the smallest in our 15-year history outside of 2Q 2017.

    Incidentally, a few weeks earlier Bank of America put its own spin on this phenomenon, writing that the lack of upside which is due to stocks being priced to perfection, “smacks of the Tech Bubble, which was the only earnings season in history when surprises saw perverse rather than intuitive reactions – beats were not rewarded and misses were not penalized.” The bank then ominously warned that “the market cracked after the 2Q earnings season when this happened.”

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    Whether the Q3 earnings reaction is indicative of a lack of investor focus, of euphoria having been pried-in, or is simply a rehash of the previous bubble top remains to be seen, but one notable point made by Kostin is that “margins, more than sales, were the primary source of upside surprises in 3Q” which suggests that once again companies were drastically cutting back on overhead – read laying off workers aggressively.

    Some more points:

    • At the start of earnings season, consensus expected S&P 500 sales to fall by 3%, and companies realized growth of -2%.
    • Analysts also forecast S&P 500 net profit margins would decline by 220 bp to 8.7%, but margins actually fell by much less than expected; net margins contracted by just 83 bp to 10.1%.
    • At the sector level, the divergence that occurred in 2Q continued into 3Q. Health Care and Info Tech delivered positiveEPS growth in the quarter (+7% and +5%), while Energy and Industrials saw EPS fall by 109% and 50%, respectively.
    • Most notably, limited reserve builds moderated the decline in Financials EPS in 3Q (-7% y/y vs. -52% in 2Q).

    Kostin then shifts to recapping his “Roaring 20s thesis“, which as a reminder sees the S&P hitting 4,600 in 2022…

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    … by using a 22x P/E forward multiple…

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    … by defending Goldman’s hyper-optimistic EPS outlook: according to the chief strategist, “strong 3Q results and our economists’ optimistic growth outlook support our above-consensus EPS estimates for 2021.” To wit, following the better-than-feared 17% decline in 2020, Kostin now forecasts S&P 500 EPS will grow by 29% in 2021 to $175, which would be 6% above the pre-pandemic level in 2019 ($165). It’s all uphill from there as the following chart forecasting even more perfection until 2024 shows:

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    Here’s how Kostin “gets” his ultra-cheerful numbers: “economic growth is the primary driver of earnings growth. Our US economists expect annual average real US GDP growth of 5.3% in 2020, 150 bp above consensus (+3.8%).” In addition to what even Kostin admits is an “optimistic outlook” based on above-consensus earnings estimates, the Goldman strategist also expects S&P 500 EPS to benefit from i) a weakening USD, representing a tailwind to sales, and ii) labor market slack, adding to the tailwind for profit margins.

    Importantly, the forecast assumes at least one vaccine is approved by January and widely distributed across the US in 1H 2021, to wit: “We expect additional positive EPS revisions toward our forecasts in coming months as vaccines are approved and distributed and accelerate the economic and earnings rebound.”

    In addition to the top-line rebound, the cost cutting evident in 3Q earnings reports suggest higher revenues should lead to a sharp margin rebound next year. Translation: don’t expect a hiring spree any time soon now that company have learned they can do more with less.

    Looking even further out, Goldman forecasts S&P 500 EPS growth of 12% in 2022, 6% in 2023, and 5% in 2024, despite conceding that “in the near term, surging COVID cases and the possibility of renewed US lockdowns represent a source of downside risk to S&P 500 EPS.” All of this, however,  is expected to somehow renormalize by early 2021.

    One final key assumption comes in the form of Goldman’s expectation that a $1 trillion fiscal package will eventually be passed “but not until early 2021, therefore posing a potential downside risk to 4Q 2020 EPS, and potentially also longer-term risks if fiscal aid is too small or too late to avoid major economic scarring.”

    Still, that risk too, is too small for Goldman to incorporate into its base case which, as shown above, see the S&P rising by over 1,000 points over the next two years.

    In other words, in its base case projection, the bank sees nothing going wrong with the economy or markets until the next presidential election.

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    * * *

    While we reserve judgment on whether Goldman is right or not (or right but for the wrong reasons, since none of this will matter once the Fed launches another major QE expansion in early 2021 as we previewed overnight) we will highlight on factual observation, namely which companies have been hit the hardest by covid, and thus stand to benefit the most from a vaccine.

    Assuming a vaccine is approved – and one most likely will be approved in the coming weeks –  Goldman highlights a list of stocks where the largest gap exists between the current consensus expectations for 2021 EPS and pre-pandemic EPS in 2019. Goldman expects vaccine approval and distribution to serve as a catalyst to drive positive EPS revisions in many of the hardest-hit industries and most virus-exposed companies. As context, the median company in the S&P 500 is anticipated to generate 2021 EPS that is 7% above its level of last year. In contrast, the 39 stocks shown below are anticipated to generate EPS next year that is still less than half the level of EPS realized in 2019.

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    Ultimately, Goldman’s recommendation is to go long some or all of these deep Value stocks as part of a barbell with long-term positions in secular growth stocks. Or in other words, the bank is long both the FAAMGs – which benefit from a continuation of the status quo – and the “deep value” names that will soar should the covid situation normalize or if sustainable reflation finally emerges.

  • Watch "Historic" Event: SpaceX Rocket To Launch Astronauts To Space Station
    Watch “Historic” Event: SpaceX Rocket To Launch Astronauts To Space Station

    Tyler Durden

    Sun, 11/15/2020 – 19:15

    If schedules and the weather hold up, the launch of NASA’s SpaceX Crew-1 Mission on the “Resilience” Crew Dragon spacecraft, powered by a Falcon 9 rocket, will begin at 7:27 p.m. ET on Sunday from pad 39A at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida. 

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    Sunday’s launch will make history as the first crewed commercial space mission to the space station. This will also be the second time in a decade that NASA has launched astronauts from the US. 

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    In May, astronauts Doug Hurley and Bob Behnken rode the Crew Dragon spacecraft, powered by Falcon 9 rocket, to the space station, stayed for two months and returned to Earth in August.   

    On Friday, at a press conference, NASA Administrator Jim Bridenstine said, “this is another historic moment — it seems like every time I come to Kennedy [Space Center] we’re making history, and this is no different.” 

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    Bridenstine continued: “The history being made this time is we’re launching what we call an operational flight to the International Space Station.”

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    “The whole goal here is to commercialize our activities in low-Earth orbit,” he added. “NASA wants to be one customer of many customers in a very robust commercial marketplace for human spaceflight in low-Earth orbit.”

    NASA’s website outlines today’s scheduled events: 

    • 3:15 p.m. – Coverage of the Launch of NASA’s SpaceX Crew-1 Mission on the “Resilience” Crew Dragon to the International Space Station (Mike Hopkins, Victor Glover, Shannon Walker, Soichi Noguchi; 
    • Launch scheduled at 7:27 p.m. EST; coverage will be continuous through docking and hatch opening on Sunday, Nov. 15) – Kennedy Space Center/ Hawthorne, Calif./Johnson Space Center
    • 9:30 p.m. – NASA/ SpaceX Crew-1 Postlaunch News Conference (time is subject to change)- Kennedy Space Center

    NASA Live: Launch Event 

    It remains to be seen if SpaceX CEO Elon Musk attends the launch event as he revealed Saturday evening he “likely” has a “moderate case of COIVID-19. 

  • A Euphoric Morgan Stanley Lists "Three Features That Will Distinguish The Global Economy In 2021"
    A Euphoric Morgan Stanley Lists “Three Features That Will Distinguish The Global Economy In 2021”

    Tyler Durden

    Sun, 11/15/2020 – 18:50

    By Chetan Ahya, Morgan Stanley chief economist and global head of economics

    Twice a year, the Morgan Stanley macro research team huddles in a time-honoured ritual – outlook season. We come together to debate and reassess our forecasts and narratives, challenging each other while collaborating to provide clients with a consistent and coherent view of the world.

    In a few hours’ time, you will be receiving our 2021 outlooks in your inboxes. As a preview, here’s a summary of our views.

    We remain constructive on the prospects for macro and markets in 2021. On the macro side, we think that the global economy will enter the next phase of the V-shaped recovery. In the first stage, the global economy has reached pre-COVID-19 output levels, a milestone we expect to pass this quarter. By 2Q21, we envision the economy getting back on its pre-COVID-19 path (i.e., where GDP would have been absent the COVID-19 shock).

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    Three features will distinguish the global economy in 2021:

    1. A synchronous global recovery: At 6.4%Y, our 2021 global growth forecast remains above consensus (5.3%Y), a stance bolstered by the news on vaccines and antibody treatments. We are more bullish than consensus because we believe that the COVID-19 shock has not dampened private sector risk appetite significantly, while policy stimulus has proved to be more than a backstop. We think that a global synchronous recovery, last seen in 2017, will unfold in 2021. While rising COVID-19 cases may lead to tighter restrictions and weigh on DM activity in the near term, EM growth will continue to accelerate. Emerging from the winter, the easing of restrictions will lift growth in DMs, which will join the rest of the world from March/April 2021. While the consumer has been driving the recovery so far, we expect the capex cycle to kick in from 2Q21.
    2. EMs boarding the reflation train: The past eight years have been tough for EMs, as a series of challenges have brought about a prolonged downturn. While it is tempting to blame structural issues for weak EM growth, we think that cyclical challenges and exogenous shocks (e.g., China and commodity price slowdowns, trade tensions and COVID-19) played a bigger role in keeping EM growth well below potential. However, we see a turn in 2021. The COVID-19 situation is now improving in a broad range of EMs and their recoveries are gaining momentum. In 2021, a widening US current account deficit, low US real rates, a weaker dollar, China’s reflationary impulse and EMs ex China’s own accommodative domestic macro policies will lead to a sharp rebound in growth. As this cyclical recovery takes hold, it can help create a virtuous cycle where stronger nominal GDP growth alleviates some of the pressure from structural issues like the need to consolidate public finances.
    3. Inflation regime change in the US: We see an altogether different inflation dynamic taking hold, especially in the US. While we argued for the return of inflation in this cycle earlier this year, 2021 will lay down the marker for this thesis. The US economy will reach both pre-COVID-19 levels and its pre-COVID-19 path over the course of 2021. Even so, both monetary and fiscal policy will remain much more accommodative relative to 4Q19. Our chief US economist Ellen Zentner expects underlying core PCE inflation to rise to 2% in 2H21 and move sustainably higher from 1H22. In contrast, the consensus doesn’t expect inflation to reach 2% until 2022.

    A constructive macro view provides a supportive backdrop for risk assets: Our chief cross-asset strategist Andrew Sheets believes that while abnormality defined 2020, 2021 will be characterised by a return to more normal conditions (economic growth recovering, control of the virus improving and uncertainty declining). Markets will also follow much of the ‘normal’ post-recession playbook. Our strategy team recommends investors overweight equities and credit against government bonds and cash and sell USD. Within equities, they would overweight cyclicals and underweight defensives across regions, and expect US small-caps to outperform large-caps.

    The risks to our views are twofold. In the near term, an even sharper rise in hospitalisations in the US or Europe could prompt policy-makers to adopt stricter lockdown measures than our base case, pushing near-term growth lower and also delaying the return to the pre-COVID-19 path. Looking a bit further out, US inflation could surprise to the upside from 2H21, particularly if we get a large fiscal package. This could challenge the market’s view on inflation and create a disruptive shift in expectations for Fed policy.

  • S&P Futures Surge Above 3,600, Nasdaq Jumps 1%
    S&P Futures Surge Above 3,600, Nasdaq Jumps 1%

    Tyler Durden

    Sun, 11/15/2020 – 18:46

    US equity futures surged out of the gate following the 6pm ET reopen. There was some debate as to the catalyst: according to some the Moderna covid vaccine may hit as early as tomorrow, and a favorable outcome would have a similar result to last Monday’s Pfizer surprise which sent the S&P as high as 3,668 before fading much of the losses.

    As JPMorgan said over the weekend when discussing the likelihood of a continuation of the “value” stock rotation, “this makes the forthcoming vaccine announcement by Moderna particularly important as a comparable vaccine effectiveness to that of the Pfizer earlier this week “would help to sustain this week’s value rotation trade. At the same time, an announcement of vaccine effectiveness by Moderna that would be seen as significantly weaker could prompt some further reversal of the value rotation trade.”  

    Another explanation for the spike in early risk sentiment floated by Bloomberg is that contrary to expectations, two of Joe  Biden’s coronavirus advisers said they oppose a nationwide U.S. lockdown as too blunt.

    “There is certainly elevated chatter that potential shutdowns in the U.S. will weigh more in the near-term and maybe so, but investor sentiment is the most elevated since 2017,” Pepperstone head of research Chris Weston said.

    Meanwhile, in an indication that the rally is not merely on the back of value stocks, the Nasdaq jumped even higher, and rose as much as 1% in early trading, which in turn would be a bet on continued deflation, and may be a result of growing trader convictions that in the absence of a sizable fiscal stimulus ($1 trillion or more), the Fed will likely step in with more QE, especially since the Treasury is facing net issuance of over $2.4 trillion in 2021 with less than $1 trillion currently monetized by the Fed under the current $80BN Treasury/month schedule.

    Whatever the reason, on Friday both the S&P 500 and small caps (Russell 2000), rallied to new all time highs, and if the early euphoria is any indication…

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    … tomorrow we should see new records across the board, especially with the S&P now having broken out to the upside of the recent wedge, a key technical according to Morgan Stanley’s Michael Wilson.

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  • Washington, Michigan Impose Tough New COVID-19 Restrictions; US Tops 11 Million Cases: Live Updates
    Washington, Michigan Impose Tough New COVID-19 Restrictions; US Tops 11 Million Cases: Live Updates

    Tyler Durden

    Sun, 11/15/2020 – 18:44

    Summary:

    • US tops 11 million cases
    • Wash. Gov Jay Inslee announces restrictions to help slow the spread of COVID
    • Mich. imposes tough new restrictions
    • NY cases top 3,600, highest daily print since the spring
    • NJ sees 2nd straight COVID record
    • NYC schools to stay open
    • US suffers 10th day of 100k+ new cases
    •  38 states report 1k+ new cases
    • Austria orders mandatory COVID tests
    • Germans will live with “considerable restrictions” for months
    • Tokyo reports another 350+ new cases as Japan’s outbreak worsens

    * * *

    Update (1830ET): It’s been an eventful afternoon for coronavirus news. As th US surpassed 11 million confirmed COVID-19 cases, Washington Gov. Jay Inslee announced strict new social distancing restrictions that will shut down  bars, restaurants, gyms and other non-essential businesses for at least 3 weeks.

    Meanwhile, Retail and grocery stores must limit occupancy to 25 percent, and malls are required to keep food court seating closed. Personal services, including barbershops and salons, will also be limited to 25% capacity.

    “Today, Sunday, November 15, 2020, is the most dangerous public health day in the last 100 years of our state’s history,” Inslee said during a news conference. “A pandemic is raging in our state. Left unchecked, it will assuredly result in grossly overburdened hospitals and morgues; and keep people from obtaining routine by necessary medical treatment for non-COVID conditions.”

    Other measures, like limiting outdoor dining to parties of 5 or under, along with requiring people to work from home if possible, were added to the proposal.

    In Michigan, meanwhile, Gov. Gretchen Whitmer warned during a press briefing that her state could see as many as 1,000 fatalities a week in the coming months if something isn’t done. Starting Monday, she closed schools, colleges, sports games and other non-essential functions for three weeks.

    Finally, the US topped 11 million cases on Sunday, one week after topping the 10 million mark.

     

    * * *

    Update (1415ET): New York Gov Andrew Cuomo just confirmed another 3,649 new cases, while total hospitalizations are just below 1,850.

    The 3,650 or so new cases is the highest daily number since the spring.

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    The positivity rate in the state’s hardest-hit areas has notably fallen.

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    Earlier, NYC Mayor Bill de Blasio confirmed that school wouldn’t be cancelled on Monday, as the COVID situation in the city and state improved over the weekend.

    * * *

    Update (1315ET): For the second day in a row, New Jersey has reported a record number of new cases – 4,540, to be exact – an “ALARMING” new trend as the Garden State struggles to fend off the latest wave of COVID-19 infections.

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    Murphy also declared that “the second wave of COVID is now here,” an indication that more restrictions might be to come. Earlier this month, Murphy imposed restrictions on when certain businesses can operate along with strict new social distancing requirements.

    * * *

    The US exceeded 100k newly confirmed COVID-19 cases for the tenth straight day on Saturday. Although they came in below Friday’s record, new cases exceeded 160k on Saturday, leaving the 7-day average at a record high, while deaths exceeded 1,300, topping 1,000 for the fifth straight day.

    One major development in the the US this weekend: All 50 states are officially back in expansionary territory after Vermont saw the virus’s rate of spread climb back above 1. Over the last 24 hours, 38 of 50 states reported more than 1,000 new cases, as the virus outbreak explodes, along with hospitalizations. Even deaths, which had remained surprisingly subdued as infection rates climbed in September and October, are starting to creep upward.

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    A CNN chyron announcing the news is going viral.

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    As for the 7-day average of reported deaths, since May, only one day – Aug. 4 – saw a higher 7-day number.

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    Testing continues to climb, but at a slower rate than the growth in cases.

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    Perhaps the biggest news in the US Sunday morning was NYC Mayor Bill de Blasio declaring that, contrary to his comments on Friday, when he warned parents to be ready for schools to close as soon as Monday, schools instead will remain open.

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    However, he continued to urge New Yorkers not to travel for the holidays.

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    In Europe, Austria just revealed that it’s taking a cue from nearby Slovakia’s mandatory testing programs, one of the most ambitious COVID-19 eradication methods in Europe; Austrian Chancellor Sebastian Kurz announced Sunday that the country would move ahead with plans to test its entire population, which is roughly double the size of Slovakia’s.

    A few notable highlights: North Dakota and South Dakota are seeing rates of spread similar to Michigan back in April.

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    In Europe’s biggest economy, Germany,  Economy Minister Peter Altmaier warned that Germans will need to live with “considerable restrictions” against the spread of the virus for at least the next four to five months.

    Globally, new cases topped 54 million, the latest global milestone since deaths topped 1.3 million a couple of days ago.

    As far as the biggest western countries go, Europe generally continues to outpace the US.

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    Here’s some more COVID-19 news from Sunday morning and overnight:

    Margrethe Vestager, the European Union’s antitrust commissioner, said she’s been told that a “working relation” tested positive for coronavirus, according to a post on her Twitter account. Vestager has herself been tested, is in quarantine and will work from home in the coming week, she said in the post (Source: Bloomberg).

    Malaysia recorded an 8.4% increase in new cases to 1,208. The capital city of Kuala Lumpur topped the list with 469 infections, overtaking the top post from Sabah state. There were three new deaths. Malaysia has been struggling to contain a new wave of cases that emerged in late September. The government has recently tightened movement controls in all almost the states in the country. New cases have topped 1,000 since Friday (Source: Bloomberg).

    Tokyo reported 352 new coronavirus cases on Saturday, topping the 300 mark for a fourth consecutive day, the first such streak since early August. Japan confirmed 1,704 new cases on Friday, topping the previous record high of 1,660 marked a day earlier, with health experts warning of a possible “third wave” of infections as the winter season approaches (Source: Nikkei).

    * * *

    Finally, NBC News has published a report warning that widely reported side-effects caused by the COVID-19 vaccine being developed by Pfizer could create unexpected problems for distribution. Like with the flu shot, the vaccine can cause muscle soreness, fatigue and other symptoms.

  • Sudden Default By AAA-Rated Chinese State-Owned Coal Miner Sends Shockwaves Across Markets
    Sudden Default By AAA-Rated Chinese State-Owned Coal Miner Sends Shockwaves Across Markets

    Tyler Durden

    Sun, 11/15/2020 – 18:25

    Something unexpected happened in China last week and it triggered a shockwave across Chinese bond markets.

    The abrupt 1 billion yuan ($151 million) bond default on Friday of a state-owned coal mining company in Central China’s Henan province, one of China’s most populous provinces with more than 95 million people, set off reverberations across China affecting its parent company, industry peers and other state-owned bond issuers and triggered an investigation by the interbank bond market regulator. The default came just weeks after Brilliance Auto, a carmaker owned by the Liaoning provincial government which owns 25% of a venture with BMW, announced it would default on a 1 billion yuan bond which matured in late October.

    As Caixin reports, Yongcheng Coal and Electricity Holding Group, which just last month got the highest possible, AAA rating from a domestic credit rating company, failed to repay an ultra-short-term bond that matured Tuesday, according to a statement posted by the Shanghai Clearing House.

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    China’s interbank bond regulator launched an investigation of Yongcheng Coal and Electricity Holding Group.

    The default of Yongcheng’s bond – which now has 24.4 billion yuan worth of bonds outstanding, among which 6 billion yuan will mature by the end of 2020 according to Bloomberg- immediately set off a chain reaction affecting other coal mining companies and local government financing vehicles in other provinces. As shown in the chart below, local government bonds as far away as Yunnan province were affected.

    • Jizhong Energy Resources’s 5.4% 2021 note fell 7% to 87 yuan, a record low;
    • Pingdingshan Tianan Coal Mining’s 5.07% 2023 bond rebounded modestly from a record low, last trading at 79.

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    A large state-owned bank directed institutional clients to sell all bonds issued by local governments in the southwestern province after Yunnan Urban Construction Investment Group Co.’s offshore bond plunged, according to Bloomberg.

    Coal mining enterprises in Shanxi and Hebei provinces either canceled bond issuance plans or slashed fundraising targets. Traded coal bonds plunged across China. On Friday, the SSE 50 Index of Shanghai’s largest stocks slumped as much as 2.1%, led by banks and insurers as bonds of Chinese commodity producers tumbled after the Yongcheng default.

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    “The wind has changed direction,” a senior bond market participant told Caixin. Under the pressure of debt replacement, many local governments may have more incentive to let debt-ridden LGFVs or state-owned enterprises go bankrupt and restructure, the market participant said.

    To be sure, the Yongcheng default is likely just the first of many: China’s coal industry suffered a big hit from the Covid-19 pandemic as demand weakened. Data from the National Bureau of Statistics indicated that the sector’s profits fell 30.1% year-on-year in the first nine months. Yongcheng Coal is also involved in fuel processing, an industry where profits plunged 66.2% during the same period.

    In response, the National Association of Financial Market Institutional Investors (NAFMII), China’s interbank bond market regulator, said last Thursday it was launching a “self-disciplinary” investigation into Yongcheng and related intermediary institutions. NAFMII said the probe would look into whether Yongcheng and intermediary companies fully disclosed risks and could result in penalties or referrals to “relevant departments” if fraud and violations are found.

    The Yongcheng default also caught institutional bondholders off guard. Even on the default date, some institutions had just bought the bond maturing that same day, an institutional bondholder told Caixin. Analysts at China International Capital Corp. said the default can be traced to certain historical reasons, but it exceeded market expectations.

    As we reported a few months ago, parent company Henan Energy and Chemical Industry Group, the province’s largest state-owned company by assets, also defaulted on its own debt. The Henan government bailed it out, giving creditors some peace of mind, but this time, some institutional bondholders that failed to get their money back say they fear the provincial government won’t extend a helping hand.

    Meanwhile, according to Caixin sources, the Henan government’s senior officials are debating whether the government should bail out Yongcheng.

    The first company to take a hit was the parent company. In a statement, Henan Energy and Chemical said that existing debt financing instruments have cross-protection clauses for investors that were triggered by Yongcheng’s default.

    Yongcheng and its parent have a total of 26.5 billion yuan of bonds that have such cross-protection clauses with a grace period of 10 business days. This means that if Yongcheng’s default constitutes a default of the parent’s corresponding debt, it may lead to further pressure on short-term debt payments.

    The default, which marked a sea-change in how investors view China’s propensity to bailout SOE, immediately affected borrowing planned by other coal mining companies and local government financing vehicles (LGFVs). Shangqiu, a city next to Yongcheng, canceled a planned issuance of 500 million yuan of LGFV bonds Thursday. A bond market participant told Caixin that the underwriters for the Shangqiu bond said a day earlier that the issuance would go as planned.

    * * *

    And yet, as bonds tumbled the “Robinhooders” of the institutional world quickly swooped in to BTFD: according to the FT, vulture funds are racing to buy bonds of troubled Chinese state-owned enterprises, after the sharp sell-off.

    “The central government won’t allow the situation to deteriorate as that could lead to systemic risks,” said a hopeful David Huang, a Shanghai-based bond fund manager who spent Rmb20m to buy a three-year note by Brilliance Auto for 20 cents on the dollar. “That creates an investment opportunity” he added hoping that the PBOC would do what the Fed did in March and backstop the distressed issuers.

    Not everyone agreed: other investors viewed the defaults as a sign that government bailouts of distressed state companies, once taken for granted by most investors, could no longer be guaranteed. “Our investment decision had been based on the belief that triple-A rated state firms are safe investments regardless of their fundamentals,” said the chief ratings officer at a Shanghai-based bond fund. “That’s no longer the case.”

    And as investors grappled with the new reality of a China where risk of default is once again an overarching consideration, they were also puzzled by the defaults in part because many of the SOEs had previously boasted seemingly strong fundamentals. As noted above both Yongcheng and Brilliance had received triple A ratings and each had more than 20 billion yuan in  cash on their balance sheet, according to their most recent financial statements.

    “What else can we trust if both the rating agencies and financial statements aren’t credible?” asked the Shanghai fund manager.

    Making matters worse, investors were also unnerved that Yongcheng and Brilliance have spun off profitable assets before defaulting, including Brilliance’s shares in the BMW joint venture: “This has set a bad example, that the SOEs can be as irresponsible as private firms in avoiding debt payment,” one Yongcheng creditor said, shocked that the Chinese government can be, gasp, “irresponsible”.

    Yet for the BTFDers of the world, the crash presents a buying opportunity: managers of vulture funds told the Financial Times they had placed “significant” purchase orders for bonds issued by struggling SOEs, under the expectation that regional governments will step in (and effectively bail them out if they made the wrong decision: “If they let Yongcheng or Brilliance go under, no state firms in Henan or Liaoning will ever be able to tap the bond market again,” said Mr Huang. “The government won’t let that happen.”

    Maybe… but suddenly bets that China will just keeping bail everyone out look far more risky. In a lengthy twitter thread, famed China strategist and finance professor Michael Pettis laid out his thoughts on the subject of vulture funds buying the troubled bonds, and why this could prove to be a catastrophic “strategy”:

    Very interesting article: China-based high-yield funds have rushed in to buy bonds of troubled Chinese state-owned enterprises on the back of a sharp sell-off caused by the default last week of a Henan coal-mining SOE.

    Their buying, however, has almost nothing to do with credit analyses and is little more than a highly-speculative, binomial bet on whether or not the government will step in, as they have in the past, and restructure liabilities in a way that resolves the default.

    Basically these funds are betting that, once again, the regulators will be so frightened by the short-term impact of allowing a default that they back away and arrange a bailout. One fund manager cited in this article makes no bones about the strategy: “The central government won’t allow the situation to deteriorate as that could lead to systemic risks.”

    He adds: “If they let Yongcheng or Brilliance go under, no state firms in Henan or Liaoning will ever be able to tap the bond market again. The government won’t let that happen.”

    I spent much of my career trading developing-country bonds, and I’ve seen many versions of this game before. This really isn’t an investment “strategy”. It is nothing more than a very simple bet that the regulators still have enough firepower to prevent defaults, and that they think the short-term costs of allowing defaults still exceed the long-term benefits. Until the regulators decide that they cannot keep kicking the can down the road, a strategy of buying bad news will always be profitable, after which the strategy will always blow up.

    This is just Russian roulette, in other words: you’ll probably win any given round, and every time you win you will be more convinced than ever that the odds are in your favor, but they aren’t. This “strategy” always ends the same way.

    The irony here is that longer the game goes on, and the more investors play this game, the more they undermine the long-term ability of the market to act as an efficient allocator of capital, and the more costly they make it for the regulator to keep preventing defaults.

    Once regulators believe that long-term costs of keeping the game going exceed short-term cost of allowing real defaults, or once too-high debt levels reduce their ability to kick the can further down the road, they will bite the bullet and allow the defaults to take place.

    The only question is when will that time come: in the case of Yongcheng it was last Friday; the problem is that in China there are thousands of similar SOE, which are effectively insolvent absent government support, and if the rug is suddenly pulled from underneath them one by one, China can forget all about the great influx of foreign capital that it needs in a time when it hopes to fund its nascent current account deficit and replicate the US experience of having foreign investors fund China’s economic growth going forward.

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Nov 15

Today’s News 15th November 2020

  • Lockdowns Haven't Brought Down COVID Mortality, But They Have Killed Millions Of Jobs
    Lockdowns Haven't Brought Down COVID Mortality, But They Have Killed Millions Of Jobs

    Tyler Durden

    Sat, 11/14/2020 – 23:30

    Authored by Mitch Nemeth via The Mises Institute,

    During the early onset of covid-19 in the spring, government officials across the political spectrum widely agreed that government intervention and forced closure of many businesses was necessary to protect public health. This approach has clearly failed in the United States as it led to widespread economic devastation, including millions of jobs lost, bankruptcies, and extremely severe losses in profitability. Nor have states with strict lockdowns succeeded in bringing about fewer covid deaths per million than states that were less strict.

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    Consequently, a few months into the pandemic, some governors weighed the competing economic costs with covid-19 containment and slowly reopened their economies. Of course, these governors did not mandate businesses reopen; however, they provided businesses the option to reopen.

    Hysteria ensued as many viewed easing restrictions as akin to mass murder. The Atlantic famously dubbed Georgia governor Brian Kemp’s easing of restrictions as “human sacrifice” and referred to Georgians as being in a “case study in pandemic exceptionalism.” Instead, we should view the lockdowns as a case study in the failure of heavy-handed approaches in containing a highly infectious virus.

    Now that we are nine months into this pandemic, there is a clearer picture of how state government approaches varied widely. It is clear that “reopened” economies are faring much better overall than less “reopened” economies. “Fueled by broader, faster economic reopenings following the initial coronavirus rash, conservative-leaning red states are by and large far outpacing liberal-leaning blue states in terms of putting people back to work,” writes Carrie Sheffield. This follows logically especially when considering that human beings learn to adapt very quickly. Now, we have learned much more about treating this virus and about who is most at risk from infection.

    Not Everyone Can #StayHome

    Even so, many proponents of lockdowns still contend that every covid infection is a failure of public policy. But this position is largely a luxury of white-collar workers who can afford to work from home. Lockdowns have been described as “the worst assault on the working class in half a century.” Martin Kulldorff, a biostatistician, says, “the blue-collar class is ‘out there working, including high-risk people in their 60s.” Kulldorff’s colleague Jay Bhattacharya notes that one reason “minority populations have had higher mortality in the U.S. from the epidemic is because they don’t often have the option…to stay at home.” In effect, top-down lockdown policies are “regressive” and reflect a “monomania,” says Dr. Bhattacharya. With this in mind, it is easy to see why more affluent Americans tend to view restrictive measures as the appropriate response.

    For many Americans, prolonged periods of time without gainful employment, income, or social interaction are not only impossible but potentially deadly. Martin Kulldorff notes that covid-19 restrictions do not consider broader public health issues and create collateral damage; among the collateral damage is a “worsening incidence of cardiovascular disease and cancer and an alarming decline in immunization.” Dr. Bhattacharya correctly notes that society will be “counting the health harms from these lockdowns for a very long time.”

    Mixed Messages

    Bhattacharya emphasized the politicization of these restrictions:

    “When Black Lives Matter protests broke out in the spring, ‘1,300 epidemiologists signed a letter saying that the gatherings were consistent with good public health practice,’” while those same epidemiologists argued that “we should essentially quarantine in place.”

    Such a contradiction defies logic and undercuts arguments about the lethality of this virus. If this novel virus truly were as devastating to the broader public as advertised, then political leaders supporting mass protests and riots during a pandemic seem to be ill founded. This contradiction has been cited in countless lawsuits challenging the validity and constitutionality of covid-19 restrictions.

    Separately, these often heavy-handed restrictions have targeted constitutionally protected rights like the freedom of religion. Supreme Court Justice Samuel Alito criticized the Nevada governor’s restrictions saying, “that Nevada would discriminate in favor of the powerful gaming industry and its employees may not come as a surprise…We have a duty to defend the Constitution, and even a public health emergency does not absolve us of that responsibility.” This scathing criticism, however, did not gain the support of the Supreme Court as a 5–4 majority deferred to the governor’s “responsibility to protect the public in a pandemic.”

    The Worst State and Local Offenders

    Such deference may be politically beneficial for the Supreme Court, but it presents a much more significant problem for basic freedoms. For one, many of these covid restrictions have been issued by state governors or administrative agencies rather than through democratic means. Michigan governor Gretchen Whitmer has been targeted for her continued sidestepping of democratic channels and for her top-down approach.

    These covid restrictions are somewhat meaningless without ample enforcement and resources, so many major American cities have created task forces for enforcing these covid restrictions. For example, Los Angeles mayor Eric Garcetti has threatened to shut off public utilities for those who host massive house parties. Garcetti wants to treat private gatherings similarly to the bars and nightclubs he has forced closed. Not only is this ridiculous, but it is also authoritarian; there have been few checks on his ability to weaponize public utilities this way. The New York City Sheriff’s Office recently “busted a party of more than 200 people who were flouting coronavirus restrictions.” Their crime? Deputies found around two hundred maskless individuals “dancing, drinking and smoking hookah inside.” In typical government fashion, the owner of the venue was “slapped with five summonses…for violation of emergency orders, unlicensed sale of alcohol and unlicensed warehousing of alcohol.” What would we do without the government?

    California governor Gavin Newsom has long been a part of this effort to restrict freedoms under the guise of public health. Governor Newsom and the California Department of Public Health released new “safety” guidelines for all private gatherings during the Thanksgiving holiday. According to Newsweek, “all gatherings must include no more than three households, including hosts and guests, and must be held outdoors, lasting for two hours or less.” Given Newsom’s interventionist tendencies, it is likely that these restrictions will be enforced. How will the government determine how many households are at a Thanksgiving meal and who will enforce the two-hour window? These are questions that journalists should ask.

    Meanwhile, the varying levels of economic recovery between red states and blue states demonstrate how top-down policy can be a failure. Strict lockdowns have devastated millions of families’ incomes while failing to bring success in suppressing covid mortality. This failed experiment must be brought to an end. 

  • Visualizing The Top 100 US Colleges, Ranked By Tuition
    Visualizing The Top 100 US Colleges, Ranked By Tuition

    Tyler Durden

    Sat, 11/14/2020 – 23:00

    Attending a good school in the U.S. comes at a price.

    Since 1985, college tuition has risen by roughly 500%, vastly outpacing almost all other increases in the cost of living. Today, as Visual Capitalist’s Nick Routley explains, there are more than 4,000 colleges in the country, ranging from high-flying Ivy League institutions to more modest, practical schools.

    This infographic from TitleMax shows the top 100 colleges in America based on the U.S. News Best National Universities list, ranked by tuition from highest to lowest.

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    The 20 Most Expensive Top College Tuitions

    From $5,000 to over $60,000, the price of college tuition for top U.S. schools is wide-ranging.

    Columbia University, with a price tag of $61,850 takes top spot. Based in Manhattan, New York it has a rich history of graduates and instructors, including investing legends Benjamin Graham and Joel Greenblatt.

    Although Columbia has the highest tuition cost, the school covers financial need with a mix of grants and work-study, which means low-income students don’t have to take on any student loan debt. This means a student coming from a home with $60,000 or less of income won’t be expected to pay anything toward tuition. That said, getting into the school is the tricky part. Columbia only admits 6% of applicants.

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    Following Columbia is the University of Chicago. Its Booth School of Business was ranked the top MBA program in the world, with graduates averaging $135,000 in median income after graduation.

    What may be surprising is that venerated institutions such as Harvard and Princeton don’t appear in the top 20, in terms of average tuition.

    The 20 Least Expensive Top College Tuitions

    How about the other end of the tuition spectrum for top schools in the country?

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    With a tuition of $5,790 Brigham Young University (Provo) has the lowest of the top 100, by far. Based in Provo, Utah it is owned by The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. The college restricts drinking coffee, alcoholic beverages, and other activities—requiring students to follow a strict honor code.

    Also found on the list is the University of Florida and Purdue. Unsurprisingly, many public schools offer the most affordable college tuitions.

  • Can The 'EmDrive' Actually Work For Space Travel?
    Can The 'EmDrive' Actually Work For Space Travel?

    Tyler Durden

    Sat, 11/14/2020 – 22:30

    Authored by Paul Sutter via Space.com,

    Paul M. Sutter is an astrophysicist at SUNY Stony Brook and the Flatiron Institute, host of Ask a Spaceman and Space Radio, and author of How to Die in Space. He contributed this article to Space.com’s Expert Voices: Opinions and Insights.

    The “EmDrive” claims to make the impossible possible: a method of pushing spacecraft around without the need for – well, pushing. No propulsion. No exhaust. Just plug it in, fire it up and you can cruise to the destination of your dreams. 

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    But the EmDrive doesn’t just violate our fundamental understanding of the universe; the experiments that claim to measure an effect haven’t been replicated. When it comes to the EmDrive, keep dreaming.

    Microwaves of the future

    It goes by various names — the EmDrive, the Q-Drive, the RF Resonant Cavity, the Impossible Drive — but all the incarnations of the device claim to do the same thing: bounce some radiation around inside a closed chamber, and presto-chango you can get propulsion.

    This is a big deal, because all forms of rocketry (and indeed, all forms of motion across the entire universe) require conservation of momentum. In order to set yourself in motion, you have to push off of something. Your feet push off of the ground, airplanes push themselves off of the air, and rockets push parts of themselves (e.g., an exhaust gas) out the back end to make them go forward.

    But the EmDrive doesn’t. It’s just a box with microwaves inside it, bouncing around. And supposedly it is able to move itself.

    Explanations for how the EmDrive could possibly work go past the boundaries of known physics. Perhaps it’s somehow interacting with the quantum vacuum energy of space-time (even though the quantum vacuum energy of space-time doesn’t allow anything to push off of it). Perhaps our understanding of momentum is broken (even though there are no other examples in our entire history of experiment). Perhaps it’s some brand-new physics, heralded by the EmDrive experiments.

    Don’t play with momentum

    Let’s talk about the momentum part. Conservation of momentum is pretty straightforward: in a closed system, you can add up the momenta of all the objects in that system. Then they interact. Then you add up the momenta of all the objects again. The total momentum at the beginning must equal the total momentum at the end: momentum is conserved.

    The idea of the conservation of momentum has been with us for centuries (it’s even implied by Newton’s famous second law), but in the early 1900s it gained a new status. The brilliant mathematician Emmy Noether proved that conservation of momentum (along with other conservation laws, like conservation of energy) are a reflection of the fact that our universe has certain symmetries.

    For example, you can choose a suitable location to perform a physics experiment. You can then pick up your physics experiment, transport it to anywhere in the universe and repeat it. As long as you account for environmental differences (say, different air pressures or gravitational fields), your results will be identical.

    This is a symmetry of nature: physics doesn’t care about where experiments take place. Noether realized that this symmetry of space directly leads to conservation of momentum. You can’t have one without the other.

    So, if the EmDrive demonstrates a violation of momentum conservation (which it claims to do), then this fundamental symmetry of nature must be broken.

    But almost every single physical theory, from Newton’s laws to quantum field theory, expresses space symmetry (and momentum conservation) in their base equations. Indeed, most modern theories of physics are simply complicated restatements of momentum conservation. To find a breaking in this symmetry wouldn’t just be an extension of known physics — it would completely upend centuries of understanding of how the universe works.

    The reality of experiment

    That’s certainly not impossible (scientific revolutions have happened before), but it’s going to take a lot of convincing to make that happen.

    And the experiments so far have not been all that satisfying.

    Ever since the introduction of the EmDrive concept in 2001, every few years a group claims to have measured a net force coming from its device. But these researchers are measuring an incredibly tiny effect: a force so small it couldn’t even budge a piece of paper. This leads to significant statistical uncertainty and measurement error. 

    Indeed, of all the published results, none have produced a measurement beyond “barely qualifying for publication,” let alone anything significant.

    Still, other groups have developed their own EmDrives, attempting to replicate the results, like good scientists should. Those replication attempts either fail to measure anything at all, or found some confounding variable that can easily explain the measured meager results, like the interaction of the cabling in the device with the Earth’s magnetic field.

    So that’s what we have, nearly 20 years after the initial EmDrive proposal: a bunch of experiments that haven’t really delivered, and no explanation (besides “let’s just go ahead and break all of physics, violating every other experiment of the past 100 years”) of how they could work. 

    Groundbreaking, physics-defying revolution in space travel or a pipe dream? It’s pretty clear which side Nature is on.

    *  *  *

    Learn more by listening to the episode “Could the “EmDrive” really work? on the Ask A Spaceman podcast, available on iTunes and on the Web at http://www.askaspaceman.com. 

  • Trump Won "Tens Of Thousands" More New York City Votes In 2020 Than In 2016
    Trump Won "Tens Of Thousands" More New York City Votes In 2020 Than In 2016

    Tyler Durden

    Sat, 11/14/2020 – 22:00

    President Trump did significantly better in New York City in the 2020 election than he did in 2016, proving that Mayor Bill de Blasio is doing a great job doing everything he can to ruin the trust and loyalty of Democrats in his traditionally liberal city by pandering to far-left mobs and committing to making life as expensive as possible while the city’s economy goes to ruin due to mandatory Covid shutdowns.

    Not only did Trump do better in New York City in 2020, he fared better in the South Bronx, which is traditionally a Democratic stronghold, the New York Post noted. 

    The area is disproportionately Hispanic, meaning that the Trump’s appeal with Latino voters paid off in other areas aside from Miami-Dade county in Florida, where Trump also outperformed with Latino voters. 

    Bronx Borough President Ruben Diaz Jr. said: “I don’t necessarily think it’s a pro-Trump vote as much as it is a wake-up call to Democrats.”

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    Curtis Sliwa, a Republican candidate for mayor told the Wall Street Journal: “The Democrats just assume, ‘Oh, you don’t have to worry about the Bronx. It’s just a lock.’ It’s still Democratic, but it’s starting to change.”

    Trump “more than doubled” the votes he got in three state Assembly districts in the South Bronx, according to in-person voting data compiled by CUNY’s Center for Urban Research. Trump received 76,612 more votes citywide in 2020 than he did in 2016. He also increased his totals in Brooklyn, Queens and Staten Island. He saw a decrease in votes in Manhattan. 

    Trump saw the biggest outperformance in Staten Island’s 62nd Assembly district, where he received 44,776 votes versus the 40,776 he received in 2016. 

    GOP pollster John McLaughlin attributed Trump’s bump in numbers to his commitment to law and order. He also said that the message helped local GOP candidates: “We saw that the president was running even or ahead in a lot of these areas, and he created a foundation that was solid for these candidates.” 

    Democrat Amanda Septimo from the 84th District, which includes Melrose, Mott Haven and Hunts Point in the Bronx, said “she could feel support for Mr. Trump on the ground in the district” and that “Democrats needed to do a better job connecting with working-class communities”.

  • Election Distraction Has Taken Eyes Off Our Economic Ills
    Election Distraction Has Taken Eyes Off Our Economic Ills

    Tyler Durden

    Sat, 11/14/2020 – 21:30

    Authored by Bruce Wilds via Advancing Time blog,

    Lately it has been difficult to write about the economy because of all the noise flowing from the election and covid-19 hype. There is a growing reluctance to opine by many economic skeptics because it appears we have been wrong on recent predictions. Only time will tell if this is true due to the huge distortions now evident in the markets. Still, all this tends to diminish confidence in the ability to see what is ahead. This has forced not only me, but other economic watchers to go back and question all we hold true.

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    Unfortunately, other than moving a few pieces around the board, the recent actions by the Fed only continues to move back the day of reckoning. The “extend and pretend illusion” our economy remains on a sound footing is alive and well. One place this is evident is in the area corporate bond market where many bonds now hold an investment-grade BBB rating. If a company or bond is rated BB or lower it is known as junk grade, this means the probability the company will be able to repay its issued debt is seen as speculative. 

    In this troubling time of covid-19 where companies are being stressed and tested, we have watched the high yield option-adjusted spreads fall back towards pre-covid levels. The fact we have not seen yields rise as lending standers have tightened indicates the Fed has removed the liquidity problem. This has temporarily masked but has not solved the solvency problem. As the “lag time effect” kicks into gear expect a growing number of defaults and bankruptcies to take place.

    This will become more visible especially now that we are encountering a resurgence of the virus pandemic. The tightening of lending standards generally leads to a huge increase in interest rates but not so much today and with companies floating new bonds they are leveraging up their balance sheets as a way to stay in business. This doesn’t mean they are viable or will be in the future. It also brings about the question of whether they will be able to repay this debt especially if rates rise which at some point is very likely.

    Without a doubt, certain areas of the economy have been impacted far worse than others. Airlines, hotels, cruise-lines, and a few other sectors have been decimated. The World Travel & Tourism Council (WTTC) published a report recently predicting that over nine million jobs could be lost in the US Travel & Tourism sector this year if barriers to global travel remain in place. The WTTC’s warning is just another latest reminder of the deep economic damage occurring due to the virus pandemic that continues to batter the economy. 

    WTTC’s research outlines between 10.8 million and 13.8 million jobs within travel and tourism remain at serious risk. According to the WTTC report, 7.2 million jobs in the US have already been impacted. If restrictions on international travel aren’t lifted, and further stimulus isn’t seen, 9.2 million jobs, more than half of all jobs in the sector, could be lost. Stimulus in this case is generally seen as government bailouts. Travel and tourism accounted for at least $1.84 trillion to the US economy and was responsible for 10.7% of all US jobs. 

    This is just one example of how much the economy has been affected. We should have no expectations that international travel or tourism will resume or return to normal in the near future. As this is being written, increased social distancing restrictions are being reimposed in Europe and the US. Companies adding to their debt load in order to survive while seeing their business erode are digging a deep hole from which they may never emerge. The ripple effect as this works its way through the economy makes this even more daunting.

    When we couple the underlying ramifications flowing from the trends above with the fact that automation and the use of robots to perform tasks that in the past have been done by humans we should be very concerned about the loss of jobs. This gives credence to the idea the Government and the Fed are holding all this mess together with simply a promise and a prayer. This creates a rather poor quality hook for which investors to hang their hats.

    Here is Jeffrey Gundlach presentation to CIEBA Financial Professionals titled “Hey Kids, Want Some Candy” on 10-20-20…

    Around 32 minutes into his presentation he hits an area that really brings home the issue we face huge problems ahead. 

  • Bay Area Food Bank Now Serves 500k Working-Poor As Demand "Doubles" 
    Bay Area Food Bank Now Serves 500k Working-Poor As Demand "Doubles" 

    Tyler Durden

    Sat, 11/14/2020 – 21:00

    The virus pandemic is threatening another lost decade, similar to the Great Recession of 2007-2009, or even the Great Depression of the 1930s, for America’s working poor.

    Widespread permanent job loss and the collapse of small and medium-sized enterprises have become a severe risk to the broader recovery – as the economic fallout from the virus-induced downturn could linger for years. 

    Case in point, the San Francisco Bay Area has lost 350,000 jobs this year – leaving many households with food and housing insecurity problems ahead of the holiday season. 

    Local news station KQED offers a sobering reminder of the economic devastation left behind from the virus – and one that will likely continue to intensify as virus cases explode to new highs, forcing state officials to reimpose new social distancing restrictions. 

    KQED said, “food banks are racing to keep up with increased demand for food — and volunteers.”

    One of the top food banks in the state, called Second Harvest of Silicon Valley, has “literally doubled the amount of food we’re distributing,” said CEO Leslie Bacho. 

    Bacho continued: “We already serving a quarter-million people. Now we’re serving a half million people.” 

    She said many of the folks picking up care packages at food banks across the Bay Area are coming for the first time. “This is a testament to how the pandemic-induced economic crisis is disproportionately impacting low-wage workers,” she added. 

    “We are seeing so many people who are already just living on the edge, having to then burn through their savings,” Bacho said. “More than half the people we’re serving now have never sought food assistance before.”

    Someone named “Gabriel” sent Second Harvest of Silicon Valley a donation of around $1,300 – the letter Gabriel received from the food bank outlines the dire situation playing out in the Bay Area. 

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    With president-elect Joe Biden calling for 4 to 6-week lockdowns as coronavirus winter fast approaches, the jobless rate could soon start rising again as a double-dip recession could be nearing.  

    Despite trillions of dollars in stimulus, mainly for corporate elites and capital markets – the hundreds of thousands of San Franciscans depended on local area food banks is absolutely disturbing. 

    Readers may recall – Second Harvest has warned about nationwide food bank “meal shortages” by early Summer 2021. 

    To sum up, America’s socio-economic implosion is far from over as the second wave of the virus could result in a double-dip recession. 

  • Why GOP Loyalists And Candidates Keep Moving Left
    Why GOP Loyalists And Candidates Keep Moving Left

    Tyler Durden

    Sat, 11/14/2020 – 20:30

    Authored by Ryan McMaken via The Mises Institute,

    There is good reason to believe that the 2020 election was a repudiation of far-left social and economic policy in the United States. This interpretation at the very least has been taken to heart by many Democrats who lost seats in the US House and who now fear—with good reason—greater losses during the midterm 2022 elections. Many blame the factions who represent the most far-left elements within the party. Moreover, when we look at the US’s center-right party—i.e., the GOP—we find it made gains nationwide when both federal and state level offices are considered.

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    What is less clear, however is whether or not the usual center-left elements of the American political scene have been repudiated at all. One would be very hard pressed to make the case that this election illustrated any widespread appetite among Americans to embrace an agenda of lower government spending, cuts to social welfare, or restrained monetary policy. Although the media likes to portray Trump as a right-wing troglodyte, the fact is that Trump in 2020 did not run on a platform of overturning to any significant extent any of the Left’s victories solidified during the Obama years, including new gay marriage provisions, Obamacare, or increased social spending. Indeed, Trump increased government spending to unprecedented levels, imposed new gun controls, and did little to rein in a CDC bent on destroying the economic well-being of countless American families. 

    Americans’ Ideology Has Moved Left

    Perhaps Trump suspected that any sizable ideological turn to the right would doom him politically. If so, he was probably right to think so. Social policy related to gay marriage has become pretty much a nonstarter, and long gone is the old conservative social agenda that was arguably still popular ten years ago. Similarly, running on a platform of reining in federal spending would require outlining where a candidate plans to cut spending. Yet, federal spending on welfare programs like Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid is consistently popular. Pledging to cut voters’ gravy train is not exactly a recipe for political success. 

    Many of Trump’s supporters—including most Republicans—appear to be fine with this. Even as it became clear the administration would generally embrace the center-left status quo—at least on domestic policy—Trump’s support among Republicans only increased over his term, rising from about 90 percent to 93 percent.

    There’s little evidence that the so-called silent majority, to the extent it exists, has any interest in scaling back social programs or taking a robust position against the policies of the Obama years. Consequently, if the GOP hopes to actually win elections, it needs to keep moving left. In other words, if the “center” keeps slowly moving leftward, then the center-right party will need to keep moving left as well.

    In a world where the Left to varying degrees controls nearly all educational and cultural institutions—as is indeed the case in the United States today—it is only natural that the ideological views of the voters will keep moving left as well. 

    Candidates Must Move Left, Too

    To win elections, political candidates will have to reflect these views. After all, winning elections involves—for the most part—a political party offering up candidates that can appeal to voters based on the voters’ preexisting ideological views. This will vary based on the jurisdiction in question, but candidates in national elections will have to appeal to the views of voters nationwide. State candidate such as governors will need to do the same with the states’ voters, and so on.

    Overall, if the ideological views held by the public are learned in colleges, high schools, and through Hollywood movies, political candidates can only be successful if they can package themselves in such a way as to appeal to these voters. If a political party can’t offer candidates and policy agendas that reflect the ideological views of at least a large minority of the voting population in the jurisdiction in question, it will simply fall into irrelevance.

    This same argument, of course, is often made by party members themselves.

    We can find examples of this from the days of George W. Bush. Bush planned to run for reelection in 2004, so his administration aggressively pushed what became the Medicare Prescription Drug, Improvement, and Modernization Act of 2003. This was at the time the largest expansion of the welfare state since the Great Society. It greatly expanded government spending on Medicare, especially on prescription drugs.

    The motivation, of course, was to pander to elderly voters who were quick to embrace the prospect of more “free stuff” paid by current wage earners. Naturally, libertarian elements within the Republican Party complained about this expansion of state power and state spending. But opponents of the administration’s plan were shouted down by party loyalists who insisted that expanding the welfare state in this manner would help secure a Republican majority for years to come.

    We now see similar logic being used by Trump’s supporters, and the underlying electoral philosophy has been the same in both 2005 and 2020. We’re told the candidate must be allowed to appeal to the voters in order to win reelection. And if that means abandoning all plans for cutting government spending or undoing the Left’s gains elsewhere, then that’s just what we have to do.

    Of course, embracing untrammeled growth in government spending was not always the recipe for winning an election. If we lived in the late nineteenth century, we’d find many Americans voting in favor of hard money, low tariffs, and low government spending. Indeed, Grover Cleveland was able to win the presidency twice appealing to these views. Once upon a time, it was possible to win elections by pledging to cut federal spending. 

    But this was only possible because a sizable portion of the population actually embraced laissez-faire to a significant extent. If the public has different ideological views, successful politicians will have to change accordingly. Ludwig von Mises drives home the point: 

    The Russian conservative is undoubtedly right when he points out that Russian Tsarism and the police of the Tsar was approved by the great mass of the Russian people, so that even a democratic state form could not have given Russia a different system of government.1

    Mises’s point was that if the voters want tsarism, then that’s what the voters will get. After all, “As long as the majority of the Russian people…stood behind tsardom,” Mises continued, then the Russian political class could only benefit from embracing tsardom as well. 

    Similarly, in modern America, so long as a sizable portion of the American electorate stands behind a ceaseless expansion of the size and power of the federal government, a politician will not suffer by taking the same position.

    Not surprisingly then, Trump loyalists were more than happy to either tacitly or explicitly embrace Trump’s big-spending, big-welfare agenda. Reelection required embracing the nation’s relentless ideological drift leftward. 

    What is the solution to this? Only after the direction of ideological and cultural trends change will political candidates be able to change how they appeal to voters. This requires a big change in the institutions that dictate ideological and cultural trends. However, most opponents of the Left, such as conservatives and libertarians, continue to think primarily in terms of fighting only short-term political battles. The Left, meanwhile, fights ideological, cultural, and political battles simultaneously. This is why eight years from now, GOP candidates and party activists will be embracing most everything implemented during the Biden-Harris years. It will be the only way to get elected.

  • Wall Street Bonuses "Wrecked By Pandemic" 
    Wall Street Bonuses "Wrecked By Pandemic" 

    Tyler Durden

    Sat, 11/14/2020 – 20:00

    It certainly has been a chaotic year for finance professionals, many of whom have been forced to work from home or, for some, work from the Hamptons. As early as May, we outlined how Wall Street bonuses for 2020 were expected to slump. With 49 days left in the year, New York consulting firm Johnson Associates confirmed in a new report that year-end bonus payments for Wall Street would tumble. 

    Johnson Associates said third-quarter compensation analysis shows overall year-end incentives, which include cash bonuses and equity awards, will decline on the year, marking the second consecutive year of smaller awards. 

    Retail and commercial bankers are expected to be the hardest hit, with year-end incentive payments set to plunge by at least 25% to 30% compared with 2019 figures. Investment banking advisors were the next hardest hit, with their bonuses expected to decline by around 15% to 20% compared with last year. Bonuses for asset management, hedge funds, and private equity folks are expected to be slightly down, in the range between 5% to 10%. 

    “The pandemic is wreaking havoc on many parts of the U.S. economy this year, and the financial services industry is no exception,” said Alan Johnson, managing director of Johnson Associates. 

    However, while retail and commercial bankers and asset management firms are expected to see year-end compensation incentive declines, fixed income and equities traders could see large bonuses, anywhere from 20% to +45% over the previous year. 

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    Johnson expects some stabilization in 2021. He warns early projections indicate the pandemic will continue hurt the financial services sector. 

    “As compared to many sectors of the economy, select areas of financial services have rebounded. Unfortunately, as we look to 2021, even with an optimistic vaccine path, the pandemic will continue to negatively influence businesses, but perhaps to a lesser degree than in 2020. Headcount reductions will continue in the first half as companies transform and adapt. For 2021, we expect some stabilization with early projections for modest salary increases, and flat to slightly increased incentives,” he said.

    A similar trend is expected to play out in Europe, where investment banks are so deeply embroiled in reviving their failing businesses in an age of negative interest rates and unlimited quantitative easing that executive are expected to receive lower bonuses this year. 

  • The Google Election
    The Google Election

    Tyler Durden

    Sat, 11/14/2020 – 19:30

    Authored by Michael Rectenwald via The Mises Institute,

    [This is the transcript of the eponymous talk presented at the Mises Institute’s Ron Paul Symposium on November 7, 2020, in Angleton, Texas.]

    “Don’t be evil” may no longer be Google’s official company motto, but it remains the last sentence of its Code of Conduct. As part of not being evil, Google maintains that “everything [it does] in connection with [its] work…will be, and should be, measured against the highest possible standards of ethical business conduct.”

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    Apparently, Google does not deem it unethical to fire an employee for expressing the research-based view that differences between the sexes/genders may include occupational proclivities. Google must not consider it unethical to blacklist conservative or otherwise nonleftist news sites, websites, and users. Google must believe that autocompleting searches with patent nonsense represents the highest ethical standards. Google maintains that factual search results representing the world as it is amounts to “algorithmic unfairness” and changing them to desired results using “Machine Learning Fairness” is highly ethical. That is, nonideological, nonaltered search results represent unfairness, while fairness is the result of informational affirmative action results manipulation—in some cases. Algorithmically ranking search results in favor of leftist or left-leaning politics and down-ranking conservative or right-wing sites is most ethical. It must consider rating the “Expertise/Authoritativeness/Trustworthiness” of websites using Wikipedia as meeting the highest ethical standards. Fact-checking only conservative or nonleftist news, often wrongly, is highly ethical. Discrimination against populist political movements and campaigns and favoring other, establishment movements and campaigns meets the highest possible standards of ethical business conduct. YouTube’s routinely demonetizing and censoring conservative or otherwise nonleftist content is ethical. Bombarding users with political ads based on their search profiles, and especially bombarding nonleftists with items having a leftist perspective, represents the highest ethics. Blatant declarations of the intent to prevent the reelection of a US presidential candidate using search rankings meets the highest standards of ethics, especially since “(1) biased search rankings can shift the voting preferences of undecided voters by 20% or more,” as Robert Epstein and Ronald E. Robertson conclude.

    In the wake of the riots across US cities over the past several months, I ran a Google search for “left-wing violence.” The top two results, from The Guardian and the New York Times, respectively, were entitled “White Supremacists behind Majority of US Domestic Terror Attacks in 2020” and “Far-Right Groups Are behind Most US Terrorist Attacks, Report Finds.” This is a highly ethical result, no doubt, especially when information on leftist violence was sought and no shortage of such articles exist. This is especially ethical, since the search analytics industry has found that the top three search results on Google drive over 70 percent of clicks. The top ten search results for the question, “Will Democrats steal the 2020 election?” included five articles about the prospect of Trump stealing the election, while all ten of the top ten results for “Will Trump steal the election?” were actually about the prospect of Trump stealing the election.

    All but leftists realize that Big Digital corporations like Google, Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, LinkedIn and others lean left and squelch opposing views—to the point of creating an alternate reality. But few ask why they are apparently leftist, let alone satisfactorily answering the question—to my satisfaction, that is. How are we to understand the blatant and well-documented leftist bias and the censorship of nonleftist views and sites by these companies? Why leftist? Is the internet leftist merely because those in Silicon Valley have been indoctrinated into leftism?

    And should we adopt the view that since Google, Facebook, Twitter and others are private enterprises, they can be as biased and censoring as they like? After all, aren’t these private platforms and not public utilities, with no obligation to represent views with which they disagree? They are no more obliged to do so than I am obliged to allow some Antifa member into my home to spout his, her, or zir beliefs, right?

    These are the kinds of questions I address in this talk. The answers should go a long way toward explaining the disavowed yet blatant attempts on the part of Big Tech internet companies to decide the 2020 election, and much, much more. In terms of the election, they’ve interfered in the election with completely favorable coverage of one candidate and unfavorable content along with the near-complete blackout of favorable content about another. They’ve likewise made a rigged election result appear to be a credible result. Then they’ve censored or banned everyone from the president on down from talking about how the election was rigged. That’s more than an in-kind donation. They may be considered accomplices in a federal election crime. They represent a fraud on public credulity.

    1. The Governmentalization of Private Industry

    In Google Archipelago, I argue that these Big Digital goliaths, or what I call the Google Archipelago, act as appendages of the state, at the very least. They are state apparatuses, or, to use a postmodern neologism, they are “governmentalities.” In a series of lectures entitled Security, Territory, Population, the postmodern theorist Michel Foucault introduced the term “governmentality” to refer to the distribution of state power to the population, or the transmission of governance to the governed. Foucault referred to the means by which the populace comes to govern itself as it adopts and personalizes the imperatives of the state, or how the governed adopt the mentality desired by the government—govern-mentality. One might point to masking and social distancing as instances of what Foucault meant by his notion of governmentality. While Foucault’s usage has merit (yes, Foucault exhibited a few redemptive, libertarian tendencies), I adopt and amend the term to include the distribution of state power to extragovernmental agents—in particular to the extension and transfer of state power to supposedly private enterprises. This governmentalization of private enterprise, and not the privatization of governmental agencies and functions that leftists like Foucault decry, is the real problem with “neoliberalism,” as I see it.

    Or do they amount to the same thing? We are witnessing the governmentalization of private industry, the turning of supposedly private enterprises into state apparatuses, and the growth of the state through putatively private extensions of it.

    2. Governmentalities in Action

    For clear and pertinent examples of governmentalities in this sense, consider government contractors that comprise the so-called shadow government. As depicted in the documentary Shadow Gate—which was banned from YouTube after just one day—according to two whistle-blowers who worked for military and intelligence contractors for many years, government contractors like Dynology, Global Strategies Group, Canadian Global Information (CGI), and many others engage in intelligence projects that include interactive internet activities (IIA). Such “social media psychological warfare” and “social media influence operations” rely on masses of data that social media and other sources provide and are designed to influence individuals, groups, or populations to behave in ways desired by the “deep state,” or other customers. Desired behaviors include voting for particular political candidates; supporting desired political movements and outcomes; and opposing undesired political candidates, movements, and outcomes—both at home and abroad. According to the Shadow Gate whistle-blowers, social media psychological warfare, which includes fake news, was initially developed for intelligence agencies but has been used and sold by intelligence contractors independently. They claim that social media psyops were employed in an attempt to tie Trump to Russia and discredit his campaign. The dominant narrative, of course, is that it was used by Russia to benefit Trump’s election. According to the Shadow Gate whistle-blowers, it was also used to whip up the recent “protests” after the death of George Floyd, while other sources claim that and the hype about the protests was itself fear porn whipped up by Russia-initiated psyops. Still others maintain that the protests themselves were part of a Russian psyops campaign targeting black Americans.

    What does this have to do with Google, Facebook, and other digital media companies? IIA operations use and mine their sites, apparently gaining immunity from “fake news” designations. But these platforms are more than passive participants in personal data mining, social media psychological warfare games, and social media influence operations. A brief look at their inception, funding, and histories should make this clear.

    3. State and State-Connected Funding of Google and Facebook

    First, both Google and Facebook received start-up capital—both directly and indirectly—from US intelligence agencies. In the case of Facebook, the start-up capital came through Palantir, Accel Partners, and Greylock Partners. These funding sources either received their funding from, or were heavily involved in, In-Q-Tel.

    In 1999, CIA created In-Q-Tel, its own private sector venture capital investment firm, to fund promising start-ups that might create technologies useful for intelligence agencies. As St. Paul Research analyst Jody Chudley notes, “In-Q-Tel funded Thiel’s startup firm Palantir somewhere around 2004. In 2004, Accel partner James Breyer sat on the board of directors of military defense contractor BBN with In-Q-Tel’s CEO Gilman Louie. Howard Cox, the head of Greylock, served directly on In-Q-Tel’s board of directors.”

    In the case of Google, as independent journalist and former VICE reporter Nafeez Ahmed has detailed at great length, Google’s connections with the intelligence community and military run deep. Ahmed details that relationships with DARPA officials yielded start-up funding, and direct funding from the intelligence community (IC) followed. The IC saw in the internet unprecedent potential for data collection and the upstart search engine venture represented a key to gathering it.

    In 2003, Google began customizing its search engine under special contract with CIA for its Intelink Management Office, “overseeing top-secret, secret and sensitive but unclassified intranets for CIA and other IC agencies,” according to Homeland Security Today. In 2004, Google purchased Keyhole, which was initially funded by In-Q-Tel. Using Keyhole, Google began developing Google Earth.

    Intelligence agency backers also included In-Q-Tel itself. In-Q-Tel’s investment in Google came to light in 2005, when In-Q-Tel sold its $2.2 million in Google stocks. A no-bid contract with the NSA sister agency, the National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency (NGA), followed in 2010. Google’s connections with the IC and military communities also involved personnel exchanges, including the acquisition of the former head of DARPA and Highland’s Forum cochair, Regina Dugan, who left the agency in 2012 to become a senior Google executive overseeing the company’s new Advanced Technology and Projects Group.

    “From its inception, in other words,” Ahmed writes,

    Google was incubated, nurtured and financed by interests that were directly affiliated or closely aligned with the US military intelligence community, many of whom were embedded in the Pentagon Highlands Forum.

    Second, and lest I be accused of the genetic fallacy, it should be noted that Google technologies were developed largely in connection with the IC and military and thus bear the earmarks of IC and military interests. And Google’s contracts with the IC have continued. Moreover, these platforms and social media outfits fully cooperate with the IC and military, handing over data to the NSA upon demand and granting them backdoor access to user data. Google was a deep-state asset from its inception and remains one to this day.

    Furthermore, it is possible that tools developed by the IC and military have been acquired by private contractors and are being used by these platforms and social media giants to influence the behavior of users of their services. In particular, former IC contractor Patrick Bercy alleges that social media psychological warfare tools that he developed for the Defense Department were acquired, possibly illegally, by General James Jones, formerly the National Security Adviser under then president Obama. In partnership with the Atlantic Council, where Jones is now the executive chairman emeritus, Facebook, Bercy alleges, is using social media psychological warfare tools, supposedly for the purposes of “restoring election integrity worldwide,” and “to combat election-related propaganda and misinformation from proliferating on its service.” It just may be that what is deemed “fake news” by Google and social media platforms represents the truth about the fake news that the platforms themselves are proliferating.

    In short, Google, Facebook and others are not strictly private sector entities; they are governmentalities in the sense that I have given to the term. They are extensions and apparatuses of the state. Furthermore, these platforms are governmentalities with a particular interest in the growth and extension of governmentality itself. This includes championing every kind of “subordinated” and newly created identity class that they can find or create, because such “endangered” categories require state acknowledgement and protection. Thus, the state’s circumference continues to expand. Big Digital is partial to the interests and growth of the state. It not only does business with statists but also shares their values. This helps makes sense of its leftist bent and their preference for the deep state Democrats. Leftism is statism.

    4. Russia, Russia, Russia! Or Chy-na!

    This talk would be incomplete without a treatment of the “actually existing socialism” in our midst, including its most significant, official state form, namely “socialism with Chinese characteristics,” i.e., China. Much ink has been spilled and many airwaves have been congested with the “Russian interference” narrative. Nary a day goes by without multiple references to Russia’s attempts to influence or interfere in US elections using social media. Donald Trump has been consistently portrayed as Putin’s puppet, even after the “Russian collusion” narrative officially fell apart. Less has been written and spoken about possible influence and interference by the Chinese Communist Party, although one may hear about this from a few sources. The recent revelations about the business dealings of Biden & Son in China brought the issue to the fore in those few outlying media and social media outlets that didn’t seek to deep-six the story. I don’t mean to suggest that Russia does not attempt to interfere in US elections or other national concerns but rather to note that CCP influence and interference attempts go largely unremarked upon or are otherwise dismissed while having no less if not more significant implications, especially where free information exchange and expression on Google and social media platforms are concerned.

    Likewise, it is worthwhile to consider the differences between the objectives of these respective state-driven domains. As National Security scholars Michael Clarke, Jennifer S. Hunt, and Matthew Sussex argue:

    For the Russian Federation, which has emerged as the West’s chief spoiler, the goal has to been to exacerbate existing social divisions in liberal democracies, to undermine public trust in key institutions, and to boost narratives around a host of statist themes: anti-immigration movements, the “alt-right,” and trade protectionism. In this way, Moscow has played the role of a wrecker, seeking to destroy the liberal order rather than replace it. It has utilized diaspora communities, fringe media, and political activists on the margins of political discourse as proxies, and has facilitated the leaking of compromising information to promote false narratives and conspiracy theories. China, on the other hand, has pursued an arguably more sophisticated approach given that it seeks gradually to supplant the Western order rather than simply undermine it. Its efforts therefore have been geared primarily around obtaining longer-term leverage through multiple channels of influence among elites in politics, business, and society.

    Of the many tactics it uses to advance its agenda of actively shaping foreign perceptions and behaviors, China practices what Victor Cha of the Center for Strategic and International Studies called “predatory liberalism.” China “leverages the vulnerabilities of market interdependence to exert power over others in pursuit of political goals.” China flexes its economic muscle to spread its ideology and guard its reputation. Examples include pressuring Apple to remove its HKmap.live app from iPhones sold in China due to pressure by Beijing because the app enabled “illegal behavior,” as protesters used it “to target and ambush police” and to “threaten public safety,” or so China claimed. Another involved the NBA. When Houston Rockets general manager Daryl Morey tweeted on October 4, 2019, in support of the Hong Kong protesters, he was pressured to delete his post and apologize for “offense” caused to the Chinese people. Serving as a proxy for the CCP, the NBA in turn precluded any economic damage to its Chinese market that such a rhetorical breach might have caused.

    Big digital platforms including Google, Facebook, and Twitter not only support the extension of domestic statism, they serve the expansion of foreign state ideology and power as well. While propaganda, censorship, and surveillance have turned social media into instruments of totalitarianism in China, China has invested millions into propaganda campaigns on social media and beyond its borders to extend its influence. Buying and usurping user accounts on Twitter and creating fake accounts on Facebook, for example, China seeks to influence the perception of the regime as well as promoting its agenda. Although Google’s Project Dragonfly was canceled and it is unlikely that Google will establish a search engine operative in China any time soon, Google nevertheless maintains offices and employees in China and sells cloud, AI, and other services there.

    In accommodating their state customers and ideological sponsors, the dominant search and social media platforms have come to resemble the governments that they effectively serve and reproduce. This is especially true where China is concerned. Google, Facebook, and Twitter have adopted the CCP’s penchant for the regulation of speech, the dissemination of propaganda, and the suppression of dissident views. A few examples of direct interventions in search-related and social media control should suffice:

    • Facebook blocked posts that referenced a Chinese virologist whose research traced the SARS-2 virus to a Wuhan lab.

    • Six Chinese nationals now work on Facebook’s “Hate-Speech Engineering” team to produce algorithms that rank, and block content deemed too conservative, among other tasks.

    • Twitter purged tens of thousands of accounts critical of the Chinese government just days ahead of the thirtieth anniversary of the 1989 Tiananmen Square massacre on June 4, 2019.

    • Twitter employees train Chinese officials to amplify their pro-China messaging.

    • YouTube has deleted comments critical of the Chinese Communist Party due to “error.”

    • In a case of contradictory non-fact-checking, Twitter allowed over ninety thousand tweets from the beginning of April through May 2020 from two hundred diplomatic and state-run media accounts that suggested that the coronavirus originated in the US or the US military, among other claims casting doubt on its Chinese origin.

    These are but a few of the examples of influence campaigns and tactics employed by China, and they do not represent the most egregious cases of the censorship and propaganda we’re encountering. Most of the censorship and propaganda is domestically oriented and produced. My point is more about shared ideological commitments and tactics than anything else.

    5. Trump or Not-Trump

    How does all this figure into the election? It’s clear that this presidential election has not been a contest between Trump and Joe Biden per se, but between Trump and not-Trump. It has been a contest between a boorish, rambling, irreverent, and politically incorrect gatecrasher versus a corrupt veteran of the political class. The “resistance”—which includes the mainstream media, the social media and “globalist” oligarchy, the neocons, the better part of the intelligence community, and an assortment of leftist political activists and radicals—has aimed at destroying the prior and supporting the latter. The political establishment has shown its sheer cynicism by propping up an enfeebled, high-stakes influence peddler and having him taken seriously.

    I’ve considered the possibility that the anti-Trump fervor has been based largely on aesthetic revulsion. Indeed, aesthetic revulsion has been cultivated and promoted by the sponsors of the resistance. But the sponsors of the resistance don’t hate Trump merely because he fails to reflect the image of the effete intelligentsia. After all, look at how they’ve rehabilitated George W. Bush. No, there’s more to it.

    Trump is a rogue parvenu who threatens (or threatened) the political establishment, not because he has [or had the potential to “drain the swamp,” an insurmountable task for any president or administration, but rather because he is unpredictable and might have stumbled upon and exposed “deep state” secrets and crimes. Trump has been an interloper, a nuisance, a thorn in the side of an elite cozy with elements that Trump has deemed inimical to American interests.

    Further, Trump’s brand of nationalism interferes (or interfered) with the global interests of those who do business with our new Cold War opposition, and not only the kind we saw recently exposed in the case of the Joe Biden Swindling Company.

    Finally, and most importantly, Trump has represented a line of defense, however tenuous and thin, of American liberties, liberties that stand in the way of a global governmental and extragovernmental order that thrives on lockdowns, masking, muzzling, banning, blacklisting, down ranking, memory holing, gaslighting, deleting, canceling, censoring, precensoring, and obliterating dissent and dissenters.

    Concluding Remarks

    Regardless of the election outcome, however, repressive and propagandistic governmentalities—including academia, cultural institutions, culture industries, information and intelligence technologies, mass media, political movements, social media, woke corporations, and more—are combining to effect a totalitarian creep under which its subjects are complicit in their own subjugation and hellbent to impose it on others.

    Whether Trump or not-Trump is finally declared the winner of the 2020 US presidential election, we are in for the battle of our lives. A constellation of state and state-extended apparatuses has openly declared war on liberty, on us. We are all thought criminals now. Risk aversion will not do. What we risk by being risk averse is everything that makes human life worth living. In the face of an enemy that brazenly revels in its totalitarian character, it is time to put everything on the line for liberty.

  • BLM/Antifa Thugs Attack Trump Supporters, Including Children, After D.C. "Million MAGA March"
    BLM/Antifa Thugs Attack Trump Supporters, Including Children, After D.C. "Million MAGA March"

    Tyler Durden

    Sat, 11/14/2020 – 19:20

    Update (2130ET): As the evening has progressed, so has the violence – almost entirely committed by leftist thugs against conservatives.

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    What was that about unity?

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    Massive crowds of people converged at Freedom Plaza in Washington on Saturday, joining other rallies around the country to show support for President Donald Trump and ask for fairness in the election process.

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    As The Epoch Times’ Allen Zhong reports, the participants marched to the U.S. Supreme Court holding signs that read “Stop the Steal,” “Make America Fair Again,” and “Trump 2020.” Before the start of the march, the crowd heard speeches from prominent Trump supporters including Rep. Louie Gohmert (R-Texas) and My Pillow founder Mike Lindell. Several other prominent figures including Rep. Paul Gosar (R-Ariz.) and former Trump advisor Sebastian Gorka were also on the speaking list.

    Participants chanted slogans calling to “stop the steal,” which is also the name of the grassroots movement organizing the event in part. Organizer Ali Alexander told The Epoch Times in a previous interview that the events are a grassroots effort by a coalition of about a hundred activists and influencers to show “support for President Trump and fair elections and transparent counting.”

    Similar events, although smaller in scale, were organized in around 50 other states on the same day.

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    Everything was very peaceful (not just mostly peaceful) until the crowds started to disperse and groups of BLM and Antifa activists began to appear, agitating attendees, and eventually turning to violence… even against children.

    As The Post Millennial reports, some footage is very disturbing and depicts a little girl being assaulted.

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    All out violence did not occur until people began dispersing. Some footage depicts a man physically assaulted, resulted in a head wound.

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    Other footage shows a young Trump supporter fleeing for safety as he is stalked by Antifa. He eventually sees police and yells for help.

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    The most disturbing piece of footage depicts a family being attacked by Antifa. A mother is seen attempting to flee the area with her small daughter. He daughter is eventually thrown to the ground in the middle of a fight.

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    More footage depicts Antifa stomping on a mans head.

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    Some footage shows people crying in fear as they are pursued by the militants.

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    It remains unknown how many individuals have been arrested but some footage depicts the police arresting people.

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    Developing…

    So – when will the media admit that the boarding up of stores/businesses/homes ahead of the election was not out of fear of a Biden victory, but a Trump win and the inevitable mostly-non-peaceful attacks and looting that would inevitably follow.

    Perhaps this is why Floridian Norma Scott says she will support Trump until the end…

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    Norma had been vocal about her support for President Donald Trump before the election, and sees no reason to stop now. “I’m supporting Trump right up until the very end,” Scott said in her Trump shirt and buttons, carrying a flag.

  • Goldman Pinpoints Temperature Below Which COVID-19 Outbreaks Start To Accelerate
    Goldman Pinpoints Temperature Below Which COVID-19 Outbreaks Start To Accelerate

    Tyler Durden

    Sat, 11/14/2020 – 19:00

    In a recent note to clients, a team of researchers at Goldman Sachs took a close look at temperatures and studied whether there was a correlation with temperatures. Perhaps unsurprisingly, the team found a strong negative correlation between confirmed cases and temperature, with the number of the former going up while the number for the latter goes down.

    As the regression modeled by Goldman shows, the further temperatures drop with a modest lag between the summer and the winter, the more extreme the surge in COVID-19 cases. This applies in both the US and Europe.

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    Using fixed effects modeling, the Goldman team then tried to strip out other factors to try and isolate and expose the influence of temperature on case growth.

    Interestingly enough, the analysts analysis found that no matter the difference in statewide policies and enforcement, cases appeared to wax and wane along with changes in temperature, appearing to resist most efforts to control the virus.

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    This notion isn’t all that surprising. Most other coronaviruses (ie the common cold), along with various influenza strains, are heavily influenced by temperature and seasonal effects (hence “flu season”.

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    Medical literature cited by Goldman explains the seasonality trend in two key ways: Increase indoor social activity for “hosts”, which increases exposure, along with the cold weather’s impact on the immune system and general health (making individuals more vulnerable).

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    Armed with these models, Goldman’s team of analysts produced a set of projections showing that the economies of the US and Europe will likely slow significantly during Q1 and Q4, followed by a springtime thaw as new case numbers start to recede.

  • Colorado Professor Compares Questioning Voting Results To Holocaust Denial
    Colorado Professor Compares Questioning Voting Results To Holocaust Denial

    Tyler Durden

    Sat, 11/14/2020 – 18:30

    Authored by Jonathan Turley,

    We have been discussing how the celebration of Joe Biden’s election as a “unifying” and “healing” moment has been lost on many who are calling for blacklists and retaliatory actions against anyone viewed as “complicit” in the Trump period.  Indeed, for years, I have been writing about a rising McCarthyism in our country  and the growing threat to both free speech and academic freedom. This hateful or unhinged rhetoric has on occasion come from law professors, but most academics have retained a modicum of restraint and tolerance.  For that reason, it was disappointing to read a bizarre attack from University of Colorado Professor Paul Campus who compared my discussion of possible voting irregularities to Holocaust denial.

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    Professor Campus writes for a legal site called Lawyers, Guns and Money and clearly took umbrage over my discussion of recent challenges filed over the 2020 presidential election this morning. The segment addressed the recent ruling in Pennsylvania that the Secretary of State violated the law in extending a deadline.  I also addressed President Obama’s comments about how these challenges may be undermining democracy. I noted that confirming the vote count only reinforces democracy, particularly in identifying problems for future elections.

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    My comments on a computer glitch in Michigan was the focus of the posting and generally my statement that we need to review the actual evidence that emerges from these cases. I have repeatedly stated that I do not believe that the current challenges are likely to overturn the election of Biden as the president-elect. However, I have stated that there is no reason why these challenges should not be considered and problems addressed. There have been irregularities ranging from the improper order n Pennsylvania to deceased voters in Nevada to wrongly awarded votes in Michigan.  Again, I have emphasized that these remain localized problems and there remains no evidence of systemic problems that would overturn the results in various states.

    Campus however ignores the very interview that he references and falsely claims that I am “going on national TV telling lies to promote a paranoid conspiracy theory believed by tens of millions of Americans: that the presidential election was stolen from Donald Trump by massive amounts of voter fraud.”

    Every interview that I have given has included a statement that there is no such evidence and that it is unlikely that such evidence will emerge.  However, while some were claiming the absence of serious irregularities within 24 hours of the race being called for Biden, I have noted that we are still waiting to see any underlying evidence in these cases.  At the same time, I have criticized the Trump legal team (in the very interview Campos references) and said that it was time for the team to produce claimed evidence. I have also criticized President Trump for his rhetoric.  Indeed, liberal sites have cited my interviews as expressing doubt over the evidence of widespread fraud.

    Yet, Campos declared that this commentary amounts to Holocaust denial. (By the way, he includes a tweet from a person falsely suggesting that I failed to reveal that the software in Michigan may actually have been the result of human error. I actually said repeatedly in the interview that it appeared to be human error and that there was no evidence of any nefarious purpose. I argued that it would be useful, regardless of the findings, to look at the performance of new systems and software:

    “What I don’t understand about this rush to end all challenges is what is being achieved here? People treating the president-elect as the president-elect. Most of us are supporting his going forward with the transition.

    But we also don’t see the great harm to democracy in guaranteeing that votes were counted. If nothing else, not just for his election but for future elections. This is a very different election. We used new systems, new software; shouldn’t we take a look at that and resolve these questions?”

    Campos however called for my termination for stating such views:

    Should a history department continue to employ a Holocaust denier? Let me sharpen that up a bit: Should a history department continue to employ a Holocaust denier whose academic speciality is the Holocaust?…

    To pursue this analogy further, Turley is the kind of mendacious troll who would just ask questions about whether the gas chambers and the death camps really existed, while of course acknowledging that many Jews — maybe even hundreds of thousands! — died because of “harsh conditions” in the concentration camps etc. etc. so you’re actually libeling him by calling him a Holocaust denier etc. etc. (BTW before anybody gets to that I don’t know or care whether Turley himself is Jewish, or whether he lost family in the Holcaust [sic] etc. etc. because the analogy is valid in any case m’kay snowflakes?).

    Campos goes on to call for my shunning by my faculty and professors everywhere.  He also notes that I would ideally be fired for such an interview:

    “If Turley were a contract faculty member it would be appropriate to fire him immediately for promoting paranoid conspiracy theories directly related to his area of purported professional competence…. It’s s tricky question, but it’s a real one, and Turley should at a minimum be excoriated and shunned by anyone in legal academia in possession of a brain and a conscience.”

    We have been discussing efforts to fire professors who voice dissenting views of the basis or demands of recent protests, including an effort to oust a leading economist from the University of Chicago as well as a leading linguistics professor at Harvard.  It is part of a wave of intolerance sweeping over our colleges and our newsrooms.

    It is therefore an ironic moment as someone who has been writing about the growing intolerance of dissenting views on our campuses and efforts to fire academic.  Some have been targeted for engaging in what is called “both sides rhetoric” rather than supporting a preferred narrative or viewpoint.

    Campos is arguing that it “would be appropriate to fire” any professor who stated that we should allow these challenges to be heard even though they have not and are unlikely to produce evidence of systemic fraud to overturn these results.  That is now a common view of academic freedom and viewpoint tolerance in academia.

    In the end, I would defend Campos in his posting such views. Unlike Professor Campos, I do not believe that he should be fired for holding opposing views or even calling for others to be fired. That is the cost of free speech. Indeed, Professor Campos is the cost of free speech.

  • Shorting The Robinhood "Herd" Can Produce Consistent Returns, New Paper Finds
    Shorting The Robinhood "Herd" Can Produce Consistent Returns, New Paper Finds

    Tyler Durden

    Sat, 11/14/2020 – 18:00

    We previously reported that one of the most profitable strategies on Wall Street was taking the other side of whatever the hedge fund consensus has been.

    We have also bore witness to a market so insanely rigged by the Federal Reserve that retail investors conditioned to “buy the dips” at all costs have routinely outperformed hedge funds, who, unlike retail investors, probably still stop for at least half a second to consider the notion of an iota of risk, which of course no longer exists and immediately puts hedge funds at a disadvantage now – as we noted back in May.

    And while hedge funds continue – err, sucking, to use the technical term – it looks like the replacement strategy is now fading whatever positions are popular among the Robinhood retail “herd”, according to Bloomberg.

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    The herd mentality of Robinhood users results in excess returns of 14% on average when traders first pile in, but then eventually leads to a reversal of over 5% the next month, according to a new study. 

    The reasoning is simple: the app’s simple interface appeals to simple traders, who are easily wowed by the most “attention grabbing” names – all together. Users are more likely to buy securities on the app’s “Top Mover” list more aggressively than other names, the researchers noted. 

    Behavioral finance pioneer Terrance Odean, who helped author the study, said: “Robinhood users are more subject to attention biases. The combination of naïve investors and the simplification of information is associated with herding episodes.”

    The paper concluded that selling a security after a “herding event” and then buying it back five days later would deliver a 3.5% return consistently. For securities where the “herding event” was more extreme, the returns were “nearly double”.

     

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    Researchers believe that hedge funds are using similar strategies, as they noted a spike in short interest in names where Robinhood “herding events” had taken place. Perhaps this is why Point72 and other funds were scrambling to get Robinhood user data after the site decided it would prevent tracking sites and hedge funds from accessing data about how many users owned particular stocks on its platform. 

    Cohen’s firm reached out to other platforms “just hours” after Robinhood restricted access to its API, we noted. Additionally, the owner of Robintrack.net, the website that aggregated data from Robinhood, told Business Insider he had “seen evidence that Point72 and quant hedge fund D.E. Shaw” were trying to scrape the site’s data. 

    The study concluded: “How information is displayed can both help and hurt investors. The simplified user interface influences investors decision.”

  • Donald Trump's Likeliest Path To Staying In Office
    Donald Trump's Likeliest Path To Staying In Office

    Tyler Durden

    Sat, 11/14/2020 – 17:35

    Authored by Paul du Quenoy via TheCritic.co.uk,

    As Joe Biden tentatively plans his transition to presidential office, national obsession revolves around incumbent President Donald Trump’s audacious attempts to remain in the White House.

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    Backed by almost all Republicans – the exceptions being a handful of moderates, contrarians, and some who bear major personal grudges against him – Trump has refused to accept that Biden won and has not conceded. Legal challenges are in process. The state of Georgia, and probably other states with close votes, will conduct laborious recounts. The Justice Department and Senate Judiciary Committee have opened investigations. Evidence of possible voter fraud and other irregularities continue to percolate, even while rumours, generally based on “anonymous sources” that may not prove terribly reliable, suggest that Trump’s team, and possibly even Trump himself, are doubtful of a favourable outcome.

    Critical government departments and agencies, including some dealing with national security, are refusing to facilitate Biden’s transition. Just days after Trump’s proclaimed loss, and in an unusual move for a president expected to leave office only ten weeks hence, he replaced much of the leadership of the US Defence Department with loyalists and is similarly expected to purge the leadership of the intelligence agencies and other important bodies whose current leaders no longer enjoy his confidence.

    Legal challenges on a range of relevant issues will almost certainly continue until at least 14 December, when the decisive Electoral College will meet to cast the final votes that will determine the winner of the election. That constitutional body, which is designed to balance brut majority rule with America’s federal system, comprises electors chosen by each state in numbers equal to the state’s number of legislators in Congress: two Senators per state plus a variable number of Representatives proportional to state population size. Each elector in fact casts two votes: one for president and one for vice president, even though in practice presidential and vice-presidential candidates appear together as “running mates” on a campaign “ticket” that voters nominally chose in one ballot.

    Debate rages about whether the various recounts and lawsuits can overturn a sufficient number of votes to matter. Trump is expected to continue legal filings aimed at disqualifying enough ballots to reverse the results in several crucial states where he is projected to lose. The maximalist anti-Trump position holds that little or no movement is warranted or even possible on the scale the president would need to overturn the projected results, and that he is deluding himself and embarrassing the country by refusing to acknowledge Biden’s victory.

    Some left-wing commentators have tried to coax Trump into conceding with misplaced appeals to the sanctity of American democracy and practical suggestions that accepting defeat graciously now might enable Trump to stage a comeback in 2024 or at least save the Republican Senate majority, which depends on winning at least one of two runoff elections in Georgia.

    The pro-Trump position suggests that claimed legal violations, either in invalid ballots or procedural errors, could disqualify hundreds of thousands of votes and award the president a second term. The most steadfast partisans of this view, including the entire Republican Congressional leadership and party apparatus, hold that conceding before these matters are settled would betray American democracy, imperil the integrity of the electoral system, and possibly create a situation in which Republicans could be barred from ever again winning the presidency. They look with hope to the federal judiciary, much of which was appointed by Trump, and especially to the Supreme Court, which has a six-to-three Republican supermajority of Justices, half of whom Trump appointed.

    Thus constituted, the Supreme Court could easily rule in his favour in a strictly partisan vote, just as it did for George W. Bush with a slimmer and less conservative majority in the 2000 election, in a ruling with no significant precedent that the sharpest legal minds in the land did not think would go as it did. On the Saturday before Election Day, Trump himself mused – perhaps not facetiously – about winning re-election in this very way, parenthetically thanking the Supreme Court in advance during a Pennsylvania rally speech.

    So far, the media debate revolves almost entirely around the final tabulation of votes. If enough evidence of fraud surfaces, and if court rulings based on that evidence favour Trump decisively, it is possible that he could win by court decision.

    Another scenario, however, lies in the recesses of the American Constitution. A significant part of Trump’s legal strategy is oriented toward preventing crucial states from certifying results that would be averse to him. All states require vote certification before electors are dispatched. Two states, Maine and Nebraska, allow slates of electors to be split in their support of candidates, but neither is among the states in contention. If Trump can throw sufficient dirt on the electoral process to convince the courts to issue injunctions against certification in just enough states, neither candidate would win the majority of 270 electoral votes needed to triumph in the Electoral College.

    In that scenario, Article Two of the US Constitution, as modified by the Twelfth Amendment, provides for a “contingent election” in which the president is chosen by the House of Representatives from among the top three electoral vote winners, while the vice president is chosen by the Senate (recall that the electoral voting for president and vice president are separate).

    A “contingent election” provides for the vice president to be elected by a simple majority of votes cast by individual Senators. With a Republican Senate majority in the current Congress, Mike Pence would presumably win re-election as vice president. In the bigger contest, however, the House’s vote for president is not by individual ballot, but rather by state delegation en bloc. That means that all the Representatives from each state would cast one collective vote for president. In the current Congress, 26 out of the 50 state delegations are majority Republican. Assuming they deliver strict party-line votes, Trump would win the contingent election and be constitutionally re-elected.

    This procedure is obscure, but not unprecedented in choosing American presidents. Thomas Jefferson was elected president in a contingent election in 1801, when the electoral vote in the previous year’s election resulted in a tie between him and incumbent president John Adams. In 1825, Adams’s son John Quincy Adams also won the presidency in a contingent election, in which four candidates split the Electoral College vote that resulted from the election of 1824. The younger Adams prevailed over Andrew Jackson, who had won large pluralities in both the popular and electoral votes. Neither of the losers in those elections was happy, but the winners’ presidencies, though controversial in other ways, were untarnished by the circumstances of their elections, firmly founded, as they were, in constitutional law. In 1836, a third contingent election took place when all of Virginia’s electors declined to vote for Millard Fillmore’s unpopular vice-presidential running mate, Richard Mentor Johnson. Depriving Johnson of an Electoral College majority in the vice-presidential vote, the constitutionally required Senate vote was duly held and elected Johnson contingently, again with no ill effect on his valid, if obscure, tenure.

    Times have changed since then, and explaining this procedure to average Americans of today, a large percentage of whom have no idea what the Electoral College is or does, disapprove of it if they do, and would rather tear down a statue of Jefferson than learn about how he was elected president, will add layers of confusion and strife in an already tortured election year. It is, of course, only one possible way in which the brewing crisis could be resolved, but no matter which candidate ultimately prevails, half the country will be absolutely convinced that the 2020 presidential election was stolen. A contingent election, however, would provide at least a patina of respectable constitutionalism.

  • Lori Lightfoot Tells Chicago: Cancel Thanksgiving, Avoid Family, Days After Hosting Crowded Biden Street Party
    Lori Lightfoot Tells Chicago: Cancel Thanksgiving, Avoid Family, Days After Hosting Crowded Biden Street Party

    Tyler Durden

    Sat, 11/14/2020 – 17:10

    Chicago mayor and “woke” intellectual giant Lori Lightfoot, who has let her city go to complete hell in a handbasket over the course of the last 6 months, has defended her call for Chicago residents to cancel their “traditional” Thanksgiving plans in a display that the arrogance of liberal politicians knows no bounds. 

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    Her decision comes not even a week after she was seen amidst a large crowd on Chicago streets partying on the heels of a Joe Biden Presidential victory. 

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    Lightfoot issued a “Stay-at-Home Advisory for Chicago” which goes into effect November 16, 2020 at 6:00AM last week.

    She told residents to “stay home unless for essential reasons”, to “stop having guests over – including family members” and to “cancel traditional Thanksgiving plans”. 

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    She was asked about the hypocrisy of shutting down her city days after rallying large crowds by MSNBC’s Steph Ruhle last week. 

    Ruhle asked: “One of the reasons people feel frustrated or skeptical is they are getting a lot of mixed messages. What do you say to those who are criticizing you were less than a week ago you went out and stood before a massive crowd who was celebrating Joe Biden’s victory and now you’re saying your city has to shut down? How do you have one and not the other?” 

  • Is Another "Crisis" Imminent: The Fed Must Double QE In 2021 But It Needs A Catalyst
    Is Another "Crisis" Imminent: The Fed Must Double QE In 2021 But It Needs A Catalyst

    Tyler Durden

    Sat, 11/14/2020 – 16:55

    One certainly can’t blame the Fed for not doing enough to stabilize markets during the covid crisis: having expanded its balance sheet by over $3 trillion this year alone and injecting $120 billion in liquidity every month, the US central bank – which is also buying corporate bonds and junk bond ETFs – remains the first and last line of defense for any equity drawdown.

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    As an aside, and for those asking why the Fed continues to “confuse” markets with the economy, the answer is simple: since the value of financial assets in the US economy at a record 620%+ of GDP, for the Fed capital markets are the functional equivalent of the economy since a market crash would destroy the highly financialized US economy, and thus can never be allowed.

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    There is just one problem: after a year in which the US budget deficit hit a record $3.1 trillion, and with the US facing a deluge in new debt issuance in 2021 which has already led to the biggest October deficit on record and which at $284 billion suggests another full-year deficit of well over $3 trillion (assuming no further lockdowns)…

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    … the Fed’s current rate of debt monetization – read QE – is simply not enough.

    As Bank of America’s Michael Hartnett calculated in his latest Flow Show report published on Friday, over the next year, “Treasury supply will significantly outstrip Fed purchases in Q4 & Q1“, and this is even without factoring in the possibility of another major fiscal stimulus.

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    The problem: while the Treasury faces net Treasury issuance of roughly $2.4 trillion, the Fed is expect to monetize less than half of this total, or $960 billion. Considering that in 2020 under the auspices of “helicopter money” (from which we remind readers there is simply no coming back) the Fed will have monetized virtually every dollar of net issuance, this is a huge cliff and one which could lead to a shock drop in Treasury prices if the market reprices (lower) its expectations for Fed monetizations.

    In short: the Fed needs to more than double its scheduled monthly QE in 2021 just to catch up to where it was in 2020.

    Of course, other central banks are facing the same challenge of insufficient monetization and some have already taken appropriate steps: recently both the RBA and BoE announced an expansion in their QE.

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    Just next month, the ECB is also expected to announce a dramatic expansion of its QE operations and as Variant Perception writes, the central bank “may end up absorbing all government supply in 2021″:

    The ECB has provided a clear indication that additional stimulus will come in December. A further expansion of PEPP could result in the ECB purchasing most, if not all, of the EGB supply in 2021.

    Although the ECB left the monetary stance unchanged at their last Governing Council meeting, the press statement indicated that policy instruments will be recalibrated in line with new economic forecasts published in December – providing strong indication that fresh stimulus will be rolled out by year-end.

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    Given the slowdown in the rate of PEPP purchases over the summer (in part reflecting seasonal effects), there is still more than half of the existing capacity remaining in the current expanded envelope. As such, adding further capacity to the PEPP facility could result in the ECB absorbing all of the EGB supply in 2021.

    According to VP, “so far the ECB has purchased €617BN through the PEPP facility, leaving €733BN for future purchases” and adds that it assumes “that the ECB expands the envelope in December by €500BN (a lower amount would not be material, while a higher amount would perhaps not be justified for now given the existing capacity) and extends the purchasing window by six months to end-2021.”

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    Putting this number in context, Eurozone governments have issued around €1.1 trillion of bonds YTD (including syndications), and even assuming a similar volume of issuance in 2021, this would fall in the ECB’s expanded PEPP envelope (at the current run rate, there would be €750bn in PEPP holdings by December, with a €500bn envelope expansion taking remaining capacity to ~ €1.1trn). d

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    And now that German opposition to out of control debt-funded stimulus has effectively been neutered, it is only a matter of time before Lagarde announces an expansion to QE which will ensure that the ECB monetizes 100% (if not more) of all net issuance in Europe (one caveat made by Variant Perception here is that “the ECB has had to repeatedly fend off recent criticism from some quarters that it is engaged in monetary financing. This argument will become more difficult to make if the ECB finds itself buying up all of the EGB supply that comes to market” although we doubt this will be a major hindrance if Lagarde can sell the alternative as a doomsday scenario, something central bankers are quite good at).

    Which brings us back to the Fed: with the RBA, BOE and ECB all set to monetize 100% of domestic net issuance – in other words, central banks will henceforth fund the entire sovereign budget deficit which is what MMT and helicopter money is all about – it’s only a matter of time before Jerome Powell will join the club, and we expect that at some point in the next 3-4 months, the Fed will announce it too will double its monthly rate of debt purchases.

    The only question is what crisis will be used as a scapegoat for the next massive QE expansion: as a reminder, the covid pandemic emerged in at a very convenient time for the central bank – just as the business cycle was set to go into contraction, with the Fed having launched “Not QE”, and with rates at a tiny 1.50 (which are now back to zero). And thanks to the $3 trillion “covid” liquidity injection, the Fed has effectively reset the business cycle for the foreseeable future. It just needs to do so again, and we are completely confident that Powell and company will be completely successful in finding the right crisis to blame it on.

    Furthermore, now that we have Congressional gridlock for at least 2 more years (absent a dramatic victory for Democrats in the Georgia Senate race runoffs in January), the Fed’s much desired multi-trillion fiscal stimulus will simply not come, leaving it as the only source of potential stimulus for the foreseeable future, effectively ensuring that (much) more QE is just a matter of when not if.

    In fact, one can argue that the creeping economic shutdowns, first at the state level and soon at the Federal, have just one purpose: to catalyze the next crash… and next bailout by the Fed.

  • Biden, Bitcoin, & The Right-To-Privacy Coins
    Biden, Bitcoin, & The Right-To-Privacy Coins

    Tyler Durden

    Sat, 11/14/2020 – 16:45

    Authored by Tom Luongo via Gold, Goats, ‘n Guns blog,

    As the coup against We The People progresses through the predicable stages of color revolution, it’s time to assess what the markets truly think about all of this.

    Where oh where is capital flowing to and why?

    Because if you answer that question you’ll get an idea of where things are truly headed.

    And the big news of this week isn’t the 1500 point gap up on Monday’s open on the Dow Jones Industrials because Pfizer was given free air time to feed the algorithms.

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    That is especially true with the lack of sustained follow through all week, leaving a massive gap to be filled regardless of day’s bullish open.

    That isn’t to say the Dow Jones isn’t in a bullish position. It is. But it is for far different reasons than, “Yay! COVID is over.” COVID’s not over, folks.

    They are only getting started with the next round of fear mongering and intimidation to lock the country down again. You know, Dark Winter, and all that.

    President-select Joe Biden between bites of jello and sips of Ensure is echoing the line coming from Europe — national mask mandates, lockdowns, mandatory vaccination.

    They’ve already done all this having locked down their populations over the dreaded ‘second wave’ which they created by not fighting the virus naturally but rather trying to hide from it.

    That said, while this week is sketchy, leaving a gap to be filled on the chart, the Dow is in a good position in the larger picture, from last week’s set up.

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    But is that because of happy days returning or people fleeing Europe and chaos?

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    And that brings me to this week’s thesis: Bitcoin’s move above $14,000 is the most significant move by any market in the world. Period.

    As a proxy for the entire cryptocurrency space, Bitcoin represents, alongside U.S. equities, the best option for normal people to maintain their wealth if they need to have it cross political borders.

    As Martin Armstrong talks about all the time, it is the subtle shifts in capital flow which reveal what’s about to happen next in markets. That’s why I don’t use any complex tools when charting. I took at the bars in relation to each other and through time frames to get an idea of what the larger picture is.

    Anything more complex, for me, creates analysis paralysis.

    So, this is why bitcoin, in conjunction with the big move into stocks, is signaling the move of market players away from assets with higher counter-party risk towards assets with lower, effectively, default risk.

    There are other signs, but given the significance of this week’s price action, I think these are your best signs.

    Gold’s bounce off support near $1850 back toward $1900 today is a subtle sign. You can’t create the fiction of a Biden victory being good for markets without also fanning the flames of inflation and lack of faith in the government’s ability to service its debt.

    Trump is refusing to concede and the Democrats’ rule in the House under severe challenge with the Republicans having flipped, so far, 10 seats. That number should rise once the vote challenges worm their way through the courts.

    If Michigan’s vote is successfully fought, John James will win there and Mitt Romney’s impending defection won’t matter.

    In any case there is no real resolution to this election that screams anything other than an MMA cage fight crossed with outtakes from Mad Max: Beyond Thunderdome.

    Personally I think seeing Kevin McCarthy chasing Nancy Pelosi around with a chainsaw would be good for cable ratings. Gods know, AT&T could use the revenue boost.

    None of this is instilling confidence in anyone with any sense. There will not be stable government in D.C. regardless of what happens between now and when the Electoral College votes.

    It’s either the most vicious kind of gridlock or draconian power plays which result in a collapse of the union into the 2022 elections.

    But what we can say is that capital is making its plans now. Chinese stocks are flying. Russian stocks are as well. Commodity prices are rising in structurally important places — copper, soybeans, corn, wheat, nickel, lead, meat.

    And the promise from the elites Biden is a mouthpiece for is for more supply chain destruction. More fear. More liquidation of the middle class forced into submission through deliberate policy decisions in Washington, Albany, Sacramento, Lansing and Springfield.

    That’s why bitcoin’s move above $14,000 is so important. Not only is this the highest weekly close in nearly four years, it signals a breakout from the broad consolidation pattern in place since it went parabolic in January 2018.

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    If history holds to supply and demand patterns after each of bitcoin’s previous reward pool halvings, we should see it skyrocket from here. All the fundamentals are there and they are all lining up perfectly.

    But bitcoin isn’t the end all/be all of the crypto-space, bitcoin maximalist protests notwithstanding.

    I’ve been chastised, mildly, by readers recently about my silence on other matters, such as the strong support privacy coins are starting to receive in the marketplace.

    What I’ll say is this. I’ve been waiting for months to see the technical signal thrown by bitcoin before I would broaden my discussion of crypto.

    If bitcoin wasn’t breaking out, if it was still being tossed around like gold through off-chain, cash-settled futures action on the CRIMEX, then there was no real hope of momentum driving into the alt-coin space.

    And I’ve been right in that call. With the exception of Monero (XMR), most privacy-oriented coins have languished as Ethereum (ETH) and DeFi have dominated the crypto-talk along with bitcoin’s emergence as a store-of-value monetary asset.

    And even Monero’s price action isn’t anywhere close to as strong as bitcoin’s (see chart below).

    Now that the coup is in process to fully transform the U.S. into a technocratic police state nearly indistinguishable from Philip K. Dick’s Minority Report, having the discussion about privacy coins is appropriate.

    Because the reality is that whether governments like it or not, capital flows to where it is treated best. And if the attacks on personal and financial privacy are going to accelerate into the Great Reset then those cryptocurrencies which offer not only good store-of-value propositions but also complete transaction anonymity will see a lot of inflows.

    The reason Monero took off earlier in the year was it finally making privacy mandatory, rather than a user option. You have to opt-out of privacy when using Monero. This strengthens the privacy protocol by ensuring more input transactions to mix up to spit out clean outputs.

    Other coins that have nods to privacy, some of which I like, aren’t as strong, ultimately.

    This is simply the best way to ensure a user can take their coins and break the chain-of-custody from the perspective of outside observers.

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    Monero’s chart is similar to, but not as technically strong as bitcoin’s. That said, the October close above the 2019 high was a strong signal that the rally in Monero is just beginning.

    It has a long way to go to best the mania high of 2018 and won’t likely get there until bitcoin is much, much higher. And I’m seeing firming like this across the entire privacy space in coins like Zcash (ZEC) and DASH, though DASH is less privacy-focused and more normie-space medium-of-exchange focused.

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    The test for DASH this week is a close above $77.83. That should set up a trending move sympathetic with Bitcoin back towards the high above $100 from the summer.

    From a tax perspective all the government can do is trace up to the point the money ‘disappeared’ and tax the transactions to that point. With most of the on-ramps to crypto, especially for Americans, KYC/AML compliant any initial capital gains taxes will be visible.

    But after that it becomes a question of enforcement and diminishing returns for effort expended on the part of taxhounds. And from that perspective, the burgeoning DeFi sector is important because it is opening up the use-case arguments for cryptocurrencies expanding the potential pool of adopters overall, thereby making widespread enforcement that much harder to implement.

    With Millennials looking at crypto far more favorably than my generation and especially the Boomers, draconian enforcement of tyrannical tax policy won’t last for long.

    Moreover, if Biden thinks he’s going to raise the upper end tax rate to 70+% and not expect people to flood into crypto to avoid that kind of confiscatory taxation he’s insane.

    From Maria Bartiromo’s Parler feed.

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    The article Maria links to?

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    That’s what a Biden presidency will look like for every major city in America. Trump started this process with the tax cuts back in 2017, which I called the most politically significant piece of legislation since the New Deal when it was passed.

    I was right. That’s why the Democrats had to cheat so badly last week. Their Blue Wall strategy was crumbling.

    That’s precisely why Trump will fight the fraud as much as he can. Otherwise capital in the U.S. will be caught between the Scylla of the commies nationalizing all the wealth in the U.S. and the Charybdis of the commies nationalizing all the wealth in Europe.

    Where do you think that money will flow? China? A lot of it. But also into crypto. And if the governments do what Martin Armstrong is convinced they’ll do, track us all down and beat us for our private keys?

    It’ll ensure there’s nothing left of us to fight the Chinese century with.

    The question now is whether enough people are willing to fight against this disruption or not. The fourth amendment guarantees a right to privacy. The financial industry has written the laws to curtail that right as it pertains to money. FATCA, CAATSA, AML and KYC laws are all fundamentally unconstitutional especially as it pertains to purely private assets, like bitcoin.

    Unfortunately, that argument was lost legally ages ago and we’ll see over the next few years where the practical limits of that kind of legal power lies in the face of simple-to-deploy technology that is nigh-impossible to shut down through a bureaucratic edict.

    As things look today, the early signs of a flood of capital into cryptocurrencies is happening. Those who wait too long to diversify their savings there risk a complete wipe out.

    I don’t think Tom Paine said, “Give me Privacy or Give me UBI?!”

    *  *  *

    Join my Patreon if you want help navigating the privacy coin space. Install the Brave Browser to siphon capital from Google’s wealth vacuum.

    Donate via crypto

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    Monero: 48Whbhyg8TNXiNV2LNkjeuJJU55CNt5m1XDtP3jWZK2xf5GNsbU2ZwHLDJTQ5oTU3uaJPN8oQooRpSQ2CPMJvX8pVTqthmu

  • NJ Reports New Record Jump In Daily COVID-19 Cases: Live Updates
    NJ Reports New Record Jump In Daily COVID-19 Cases: Live Updates

    Tyler Durden

    Sat, 11/14/2020 – 16:33

    Summary:

    • New Jersey reports daily case record
    • Six governors hold emergency meetings
    • US tops 170k new cases for first time
    • Total cases in US top 10.75 million
    • Istanbul mayor proposes lockdown
    • Latest outbreak impacting all states, regions
    • South Korea sees more new cases since September
    • Australia’s Victoria state goes 15th day virus free

    * * *

    Update (1620ET): As the US heads toward another daily record number of new cases, New Jersey just reported the most infections in a day since the start of the pandemic. 4,395 new cases were reported in the Garden State over the past 24 hours, a number that Gov. Murphy said was “concerning and alarming.”

    https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js

    Meanwhile, now that Vermont is seeing viral spread again, meaning that all 50 states are back to seeing “R” rates – that is, the rate of viral spread – back above 1, the governors of 6 eastern and northeastern states (CT, NY, NJ, VT, PA, MA) are holding an emergency briefing to decide on potential new restrictions as the Thanksgiving holiday draws nearer.

    Austria announced tighter lockdown measures, while Greece canceled school and Moscow closed bars and restaurants. Tehran, meanwhile, will close all non-essential businesses as viral cases and deaths soar.

    Just days after Beijing pushed out the last of the pro-democracy opposition in Hong Kong’s LegCo, the government has announced a mandatory testing regimen and new social distancing restrictions.

    * * *

    New US cases topped 170k for the first time on Friday as the coronavirus outbreak intensifies across all 50 states. According to data provided by the Coronavirus Tracking Project, hospitalizations are right around 70k, also a new record high since the start of the pandemic, while tests have also reached new record highs.

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    With Elon Musk and others questioning the rate of false positives, rising deaths and hospitalizations nevertheless suggest that the outbreak is spreading rapidly and worsening. Scientists and researchers have more or less determined that colder temperatures and spending more time indoors lead to increased infection risk, since the virus spreads fastest in poorly ventilated places.

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    While all states are seeing numbers rise, the Midwest is getting hit particularly hard right now.

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    Two states, Texas and Illinois, reported more than 10k new cases yesterday, with Illinois seeing its daily number top 15k for the first time.

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    So far, the US has reported more than 10.75 million COVID-19 cases; of those, roughly 245k have died. Worldwide, more than 53.5 million cases have been confirmed, with more than 1.3 million deaths.

    Interestingly, Charlie Bilello, the founder and CEO of Compound Capital Advisors, has created a model seeking to adjust the severity of America’s COVID outbreak for factors like increased testing. So far, his model has found that we’re currently seeing the highest rate of spread yet. That’s true for the US, and it’s true for most of Europe, too.

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    Over the past couple of days, Biden’s COVID advisors have walked back talk of a 4-6 week lockdown, as California and its northwestern neighbors Oregon and Washington urge residents not to leave their state unless they absolutely need to. Even some more red states have started to tighten restrictions, with North Dakota becoming the latest state to mandate mask wearing in indoor public places. ND Gov. Doug Burgum’s office released a series of mitigation measures that will go into effect on Monday.

    Meanwhile, in California, public health officials have affirmed that another strict lockdown probably wouldn’t be the best course of action due to “lockdown fatigue”. California Health and Human Services Secretary Dr. Mark Ghaly said a strict mandate was ruled out over concerns that “COVID fatigue” might spark a backlash, leading people to behave in ways that are less safe.

    As the world waits for the next update on the vaccine process, Bloomberg has pointed out that more comprehensive data from Pfizer, released as part of its application for emergency approval, is expected to be released.

    Here’s some more news from overnight and Saturday morning:

    A shutdown of two to three weeks should be implemented in Istanbul as the city accounts for more than 50% of the coronavirus cases in Turkey, Mayor Ekrem Imamoglu said. Imamoglu, who recently recovered from coronavirus himself, said that the city’s Science Advisory Board is recommending a shutdown followed by a controlled re-opening (Source: Bloomberg).

    South Korea reports 205 cases as of Friday midnight — topping 200 for the first time since September — of which 166 were domestic and 39 imported. More than 65% of locally transmitted cases were from Seoul and Gyeonggi Province, a densely populated area surrounding the capital (Source: Nikkei).

    Australia’s state of Victoria, an epicenter of the virus surge in recent months, records its 15th consecutive day of no new infections and no related deaths — two weeks after it eased one of the world’s longest and strictest lockdowns (Source: Nikkei).

    China reports 18 cases for Friday, up from eight a day earlier. All new infections were from overseas (Source: Nikkei).

  • NYTimes Exposed "Massive Scheme" By Democrats In Pennsylvania's Election System… In 1994
    NYTimes Exposed "Massive Scheme" By Democrats In Pennsylvania's Election System… In 1994

    Tyler Durden

    Sat, 11/14/2020 – 16:20

    As Trump’s solid lead on election night in Pennsylvania leaked away overnight (in mysterious and allegedly nefarious ways), many were left wondering just what happened. Well, there was no fraud, that’s for sure, according to the establishment leftists and rightists and the media… it’s all a vast right wing conspiracy.

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    Headline-writers and talking-heads were quick to dismiss any allegations, 100s of affadavits, and video evidence of fraud, proclaiming any and all suggestions of fraud are “baseless claims” and an “unprecedented” attack on Democracy… etc…

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    However, this kind of systemic fraud is anything but unprecedented in Pennsylvania. As none other than The New York Times wrote in February 1994…

    “Saying Philadelphia’s election system had collapsed under “a massive scheme” by Democrats to steal a State Senate election in November, a Federal judge today took the rare step of invalidating the vote and ordered the seat filled by the Republican candidate.”

    Judge Newcomer ruled that the Democratic campaign of William G. Stinson had stolen the election from Bruce S. Marks in North Philadelphia’s Second Senatorial District through an elaborate fraud in which hundreds of residents were encouraged to vote by absentee ballot even though they had no legal reason — like a physical disability or a scheduled trip outside the city — to do so… (emphasis ours)

    In many instances, according to Republicans who testified during a four-day civil trial last week, Democratic campaign workers forged absentee ballots. On many of the ballots, they used the names of people who were living in Puerto Rico or serving time in prison, and in one case, the voter had been dead for some time.

    “Substantial evidence was presented establishing massive absentee ballot fraud, deception, intimidation, harassment and forgery,” Judge Newcomer wrote in a decision made public today.

    The district, which includes white, black and Hispanic neighborhoods, is overwhelmingly Democratic by registration. Nonetheless, campaign workers testified that widespread voter apathy had prompted them to promote a “new way to vote” to insure a victory.

    …

    Indeed, the two Democrats on the three-member board of elections, an elected body, testified that they were aware of the voter fraud, had intentionally failed to enforce the election law and had later tried to conceal their activities by hurriedly certifying the Democratic candidate as the winner.

    …

    Judge Newcomer ordered that Mr. Stinson, a 49-year-old former assistant deputy mayor of Philadelphia, be removed from his State Senate office and that Mr. Marks, a 36-year-old lawyer and former aide to United States Senator Arlen Specter, be certified the winner within 72 hours.

    “This is extraordinary relief,” Judge Newcomer wrote. “However, it is appropriate because extraordinary conduct by the Stinson campaign and the board tainted the entirety of the absentee ballots.”

    … some election experts noted today that there have been many larger cases of voter fraud in Chicago and Louisiana in the 1970’s and Alabama in the 1980’s.

    The case involving the Philadelphia seat, however, may be the largest example involving fraudulent absentee ballots.

    Read more here…

    So, is this where the Democrats got the idea to swamp the nation with mail-in ballots? It worked (for a while) in 1994, why not try it again now… and this time, Dems have the entire media at their behest to whitewash/censor/ban any dissent of a free- and fair-election.

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Nov 14

Today’s News 14th November 2020

  • The Inter-Election Period: A Breakdown Of This Strange Moment In US History
    The Inter-Election Period: A Breakdown Of This Strange Moment In US History

    Tyler Durden

    Fri, 11/13/2020 – 23:40

    Authored by Tim Kirby via The Strategic Culture Foundation,

    Right now, the entire world sits in waiting for the final declaration of the victor in the 2020 U.S. Presidential race even if they have already officially congratulated Biden. This still technically ongoing electoral process has exposed many truths and confirmed a wide range of suspicions about what is actually going on inside American politics. How “the game is to be played” going further down the road will be determined by who wins or maybe better yet how they win. Let’s break down everything we should have learned from this very unusual voting year during this brief window of uncertainty.

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    Democratic calls for “Healing and Unity” prove Trump has a strong case

    The American Left is now crying out for “Healing and Unity” across the country which is an obvious middle school ploy to make any attempts by Trump to get fair final election results look pathetic and divisive. On the surface one would think that this is an offensive strategy from the dominant side to get the other to break, but calls for peace generally come from the one with the weaker hand.

    If the Democrats were sure that Trump lost, then there would be no need to call for peace after years of demonizing anyone who doesn’t agree with them. This rhetorical change is not one of triumph, but of fear. When the first partially Black President of the United States came to power the Left boldly rode this wave of political inertia starting their transformation into hardcore Progressives and while showing zero concern for the losers and “unity”. For them this was a smug moment of victory, much like Trump’s 2016 victory was for the right. So why would they choose to become so much more friendly all of a sudden this time?

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    Image: After years of hateful rhetoric why call for healing and unity now?

    It seems more likely than not that this guilt tactic is being used because Trump may actually have a case and be able to get the votes counted accurately, i.e. in his favour. Moral high ground attacks from the Dems are unlikely to work as Trump has been compared to Hitler since the start of his previous electoral campaign. Appeasement for the POTUS has thus far completely failed, why would it start working now?

    A Color Revolution in America is possible and may have occurred

    The Old Russian joke that a revolution could “never happen in America because there are no U.S. Embassies in Washington” has now become obsolete. The media, including even the supposedly conservative Fox News, has completely and totally given the election to Biden despite many irregularities. Not to mention, the fact that as these words are being typed – the election is not officially over.

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    Image: High journalistic standards in practice in the EU.

    If there is one key element to a Color Revolution that must be in place for success it is control of the media. If every TV channel and news site says candidate X is the winner, then he has won regardless of votes and regardless of how many people still use said dinosaur media. They ultimately cast the big final ballot.

    The rampant tampering and falsification witnessed (and often self filmed by the perpetrators) during the election looked like something you would expect to see in a “backwards third world hellhole” type of country. The manipulation was rampant, blatant and primitive.

    This fact can and should be used by the nations at odds with America (Russia, China, Iran, Cuba, Syria, etc.) in perpetuity as proof that the U.S. never had, nor should have, some sort of democracy-based moral authority over anyone else. America’s own Color Revolution delegitimizes any attempts to spread regime change via media elsewhere across the globe.

    The Dynamic between the Republicans and Democrats has changed forever.

    Donald Trump has changed the Republican Party, from the party of Businessmen and a defensive Upper Middleclass with a sprinkling of Social Conservatism speaking almost exclusively to a White audience into a populist party that offers a Right Wing emotional vision to the multi-ethnic America that we live in today.

    The shift in concept of the Republican Party is so severe that Trump’s influence has had the same or maybe even a greater effect that “The Southern Strategy” ever did. Around ten or fifteen years ago it looked like America would evolve into a one-party state due to demographics and the inability of Republicans to appeal to non-Whites. If polls can be trusted, at the very least Trump has doubled the amount of Black Americans who voted for him last time and was able to persuade ⅓ of Latinos to vote for him despite building “The Wall”. Looking back on the 2016 election it is easy to see these huge gains, in groups that the Democrats took for granted as “theirs”.

    In contrast to Trump’s vision of a pro-Consitution, somewhat Libertarian populous party the Democrats have doubled down on hardcore Progressive positions. If the Dems used to represent the working man in a White vs. Blue collar America battle, they have now shifted over to being a Postmodernist circus of race, gender and sexual orientation baiting with a sprinkle of environmentalism via taxation as icing on the cake.

    These are two radically different messages in direct opposition to each other, and the parties are no longer “two sides of the same coin”, being two slightly different takes on the Liberalism laid down by the Founding Fathers. This is probably why things have gotten so unusually ugly, American politics may have become truly “winner take all”.

    Enemy Lists are Proof of Extremism

    When Richard Nixon’s enemy list was discovered it shocked America. How could such an important politician try to crush those who disagreed with him? Those are the actions of a monsterous dictator, how horribly unamerican! Well the Overton Window has certainly shifted since the 1970’s and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez’s call to create the same type of political repression of her enemies was met with mostly applause over Twitter.

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    Image: The Enlightenment is dead and we killed it.

    Now a “Trump Accountability Project” has already sprung up based on her words to make sure that everyone who supported Trump will be somehow punished. From having their noses rubbed in it, to having their lives ruined by being doxed, harassed, etc.

    This idea of creating a Black List of people to punish, is the line where passion for an ideology turns into a form of Extremism. This along with the intimidation tactics used by Antifa are proof that the Democratic Left now has demonstrably Extremist views.

    The key issue with Extremists is that you cannot make any agreement with them as they see their opponents as subhuman and/or evil. Trump over the last 4 years has made the massive mistake of trying to “playball”. The problem is that one cannot do so with people who have fanatical views. Making concessions to those with Extremist views is basically just tightening the noose around your own neck. Trump, if he survives this needs to understand that this is political war not political games.

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    Image: The election results are “counted” by those with the money to broadcast the results. Trump needs to break the monopoly.

    Trump & The Right need to invest in a Media Empire

    The homogeneity of the American news media has become Orwellian. Trump and other like-minded billionaires need to put together a countervoice on their own dime. The Trump Presidency would be doing much better if a billion dollar news outlet was on his side fighting back. There are many media experts with the experience needed (including and especially the author of this piece) who could get this done quickly and effectively.

    The Million MAGA March will surely turn violent and that violence will be exploited for political gains.

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    Image: The big march is coming, but who would honestly expect it to go peacefully?

    Leaders that have survived Color Revolution attempts like Venezuela’s Maduro and Belarus’s Lukashenko have one thing in common – massive public support. At the very least a massive public showing for the Dear Orange Leader wouldn’t hurt but if Antifa were to show up to fight, the event could be exploited by the Right for all sorts of political action. Just because Trump’s views seem much more human and reasonable compared to SJWs does not make him a saint. This event will be manipulated to the utmost.

    Congratulating Biden is proof of approval of or submission to Washington.

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    Image: Weaker and more loyal “allies” jumped at the chance to acknowledge Biden’s victory.

    Some nations have already congratulated Biden, whereas America’s two “big dog” enemies, Russia and China, and many other disgruntled parties have not [ZH: China has since congratulated Biden]. This willingness to congratulate Biden, supporting the legitimacy of the elections as the Mainstream Media reported them is very telling to say the least.

  • Air Force Wants To Arm Stealth Jets With Laser Cannons By 2025
    Air Force Wants To Arm Stealth Jets With Laser Cannons By 2025

    Tyler Durden

    Fri, 11/13/2020 – 23:20

    National Defense reports Lockheed Martin is developing a directed energy weapon for stealth fighter jets with deployment expected around the mid-2020s.

    “We’re committing to putting a laser pod equipped with a high-energy laser in the air within five years,” said Mark Stephen, business development lead for strategic technology development at Lockheed Martin’s missiles and fire control division.

    Stephen said Lockheed is a “core” member of an industry team working the Air Force Research Laboratory’s (AFRL) Self-Protect High Energy Laser Demonstrator (SHiELD) program, to develop a directed energy weapon that will eventually be molded into an aircraft pod.

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    The laser pods will be a game-changer for stealth aircraft and or drones, able to zap threatening surface-to-air and air-to-air missiles with laser beams. Readers may recall (see: here & here), we’ve covered AFRL’s program to design, develop, test, and eventually deploy laser pods on fighter jets. 

    Stephen said the new jet-mounted laser gun would likely be deployed around 2025. Stealth fighter jets, such as the F-35 or F-22, will probably be the first aircraft to receive the new weapon. In 2019, US Air Force officials revealed ground-based laser tests of the new weapon successfully downed “several missiles.”

    By 2025, the projected year of laser cannons entering the modern battlefield – the Air Force will likely have a new sixth-generation prototype stealth fighter – with operational timelines around 2030. Air combat’s future is rapidly changing as stealth fighter jets in the next 5-8 years will likely be armed with not just laser cannons but also hypersonic missiles. 

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    Besides the Air Force, Lockheed has also patterned with the Navy and Army to develop other directed energy capabilities.

    Stephen said the defense company “established a new directed energy system integration lab in Orlando, Florida, to test high-energy lasers and beam directors as it integrates them into pods.” 

    “By 2021, this lab will be certified to test high-energy laser outfits up to 50 kilowatts and will allow firing of 150-kilowatt class lasers by 2024,” Stephen noted.

    The world is becoming a scary place – a top UK military commander warned this week how the coronavirus pandemic is a “real risk” of sparking another world war. 

  • "Watch This!"
    “Watch This!”

    Tyler Durden

    Fri, 11/13/2020 – 23:00

    Authored by Dmitry Orlov via Club Orlov blog,

    There are times in my career as a collapse observer and systematizer when my running commentary can quite reasonably be pared down to just two words: “Watch this!”

    The current severe stage of the financial and economic collapse sequence that was initiated in 2008, which is being artificially masked (no pun intended) by the Covid “pandemic,” and now a hung and fraudulent US election on top of it is just such an occasion: why not just sit back and watch the world burn?

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    But I happen to be in a particularly good and sprightly mood today, and when I get that way few things can hold me back from holding forth and bloviating prophetically.

    Let’s start with a quick jaunt down memory lane. I first realized that the USA was going to follow the general trajectory of the USSR back in 1995. I also immediately realized that the USSR was rather well prepared for collapse whereas the USA was about to be blindsided by it, and so, as a public service, I thought I should warn people. “And a fat lot of good that did!” some of you might immediately exclaim. But you would be wrong: lots of people have written to me to say how much better adjusted they are psychologically now that they have heard and accepted my message, for now they are ready to accept collapse with equanimity and poise. This is sure to make their company less tedious moving forward.

    And so I had my “Eureka!” moment in 1995, and a decade later, in 2005, I went public with my observations. I got a surprisingly sympathetic response from some particularly enlightened people (even if they said so themselves). And now, a quarter of a century after my initial insight, as the US enters national bankruptcy and institutional collapse, the whole world is being treated to an end-of-empire spectacular election extravaganza starring none other than the consummate showman and impresario extraordinaire Donald Trump. He used to run beauty pageants, while this one is more of an ugliness pageant, but then beauty is rare and always fades while ugliness is commonplace and usually just gets uglier, making it a much safer bet. And so let’s accept it as a parting present to the world from a vanishing nation that gave us horror flicks, reality television and three-ring circuses with sideshow freaks.

    Within the sweeping panoramic tableau of the 2020 election, Trump (our hero) appears bathed in a golden sunset glow of nostalgia for lost American greatness which he forever promises to rekindle. Rest assured, Trump or no Trump, America will never be great again. But Trump’s magic halo extends out from his resplendent orange cranial plumage and enfolds all those who pine for the lost Pax Americana and fear and loathe what America is fast becoming—which is, to put it bluntly, a holding tank for degenerates of every stripe presided over by a freak show. They pine for a time when men were manly and women womanly, when secretaries were flattered when their bosses took time away from their busy schedules to rub up against them, and when everyone was either a WASP, or worked hard on trying to look and act like one, or kept to their assigned station in life and knew better than to get too uppity. They want to believe that the ethnic melting pot can still produce noble alloys, preferably Corinthian bronze, and certainly not clinker or slag.

    Arrayed against our fearless orange-hued leader, who at 74 is no spring chicken himself, is a ghoulish gaggle of geriatric gerontocrats.

    There is Joe Biden, 77, whose brain ran away and joined a circus some years ago but who imagines himself to be president-elect, or senator, or vice-president, or something. Having spent eight years lurking in the shadows as Obama’s VP, Biden is as fit to lead as a pig is kosher after rubbing its side against a corner of a synagogue. To assist Biden in his dodderings there is his party-appointed nanny, Kamala Harris, a mere slip of a girl at 56.

    Also haunting the balcony of the American mausoleum is Nancy Pelosi, 80, who still runs the House of Representatives even though proper employment for her at this point would be up on a pole keeping the birds off the corn. There is also Bernie Sanders, 79, a sad pagliaccio whose permanent role in the political Commedia dell’Arte that the Democratic Party stages every four years is to simulate democracy by cheerleading crowds of young imbeciles in Act I, to feign death after falling off his pogo stick in Act II, and to stagger to his feet, wave and smile for the curtain call.

    Last but not least, there is the horrid harpy Hillary Clinton, who is relatively young at 73 but whose putrid smell and cadaverous, ghastly visage are not longer fit for public display except in most delicately contrived circumstances. Hidden even further backstage is the suppurating cadaver of George Soros who, at 90, is still pulling the strings and wreaking havoc in the US and around the world. (His minions had recently spread color revolution to Armenia, in turn causing it to “elect” Pashinyan, a choice imbecile and a traitor, who then lost a big chunk of Armenian territory to Azerbaijan.) I could mention quite a few other financial corpses and oligarchic cadavers, but will refrain, to avoid giving you nightmares. Nobody lives forever, not even Henry Kissinger, 97, and so all we have to do is wait.

    In healthy societies, older leaders age out and make room for younger leaders who take over for them after a lengthy period of study and apprenticeship. In sick societies, older leaders cling to power with no one competent there to replace them and once they die are replaced by traitors and criminals. The USSR and the USA are two such examples. The late Soviet serial gerontocracy of Brezhnev, Andropov and Chernenko, who for a time haunted the balcony of the Lenin mausoleum and, once dispatched to the netherworld, were swiftly replaced by the traitorous duo of blabbermouth Mikhail Gorbachëv and Drunk President Boris Yeltsin, was a tragedy for Russia. The resulting die-off was of the same order of magnitude as the losses incurred during World War II. In accordance with the worn-out cliché about history repeating, the current American gerontocracy is more of a farce than a tragedy, but its results are likely to be no less lethal for the population.

    To complete this ghastly tableau, in the ongoing US presidential election, an almost-dead candidate and his charming assistant have been voted for by an army of the undead: voters that have mailed in their ballots in spite of being deceased. I have spot-checked a bit of the incriminating evidence myself, and I am pretty sure that there were over 11,000 such voters in a single Michigan county alone. But this is by no means a local scam: among many other vote-counting shenanigans, it appears that there was a nationwide effort to order mail-in ballots for dead people, fill them out for Biden, and mail them in. You might say that this is a human rights issue: why deprive dead people of their right to vote? Isn’t it about time to stop discriminating against the dead? Perhaps LGBTQ should be amended to LGBTQD for “Dead.” But why stop there? Why not also add a “U” for the unborn and stop this unpardonable discrimination against abortions?

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    In any case, dead voters for Biden turn out to be just the tip of an entire iceberg of election fraud. There are also the over 1.8 million nonexistent yet registered voters discovered by Judicial Watch back in September. Add to that the faulty voting system, creepily named “Dominion,” which miscounted votes to favor Biden. Add to that the undeservedly kid-gloved and fawning press coverage afforded to Biden and the US mass media’s overwhelmingly hostile attitude toward Trump. Add to that the fraudulent poll data which, just as prior to the 2016 election, was contrived to make a fraudulent Biden victory seem plausible. Add to that the amply funded organizations such as BLM and Antifa (in which the “Anti-” prefix is gratuitous, this organization in fact being very much “Fa…”) which have been ordered to protest, loot and riot in many major US cities, moving their mercenaries from location to location, where they then recruit useful idiots among the locals. What this adds up to is a vast, brazen, carelessly self-incriminating conspiracy to overthrow a sitting president through election fraud.

    If you believe even for a moment that I am scandalized, disgusted and outraged by this trampling of the sacred principles of democracy, then pardon me while I shake my head sardonically while quietly chuckling to myself. No, I am not the least bit upset. In fact, this development fills me with optimism for the future. I believe that this ghastly institutional failure is a wonderful development that offers great hope to the rest of the world, and perhaps even to the US itself, although the political environment in the US appears to be rather hopeless irrespective of how horribly or wonderfully its ridiculous electoral system can be made to function.

    In any case, it would be futile to try to give the US some semblance of a democratic election system. It would be like trying to clean up a beach by picking up empty beer cans around a beached whale. The presidency, after four years of ham-handed efforts to unseat a president using false evidence, is a failed institution. Congress, which now nonchalantly overspends federal revenue by a factor of three, is a fiscal zombie. The Federal Reserve, which is now a pure pyramid scheme, is a financial zombie. And then there is the rest of the ridiculously bloated US economy, which is waiting for a stiff gust of wind to cause ephemeral wealth to flood out of stocks and bonds and into cash, much of it evaporating in the process and the rest causing a tsunami of consumer price inflation.

    In the course of this spectacle, the false image of the US as a shining city on a hill, a beacon for huddled masses yearning to breathe free and a beneficent global policeman safeguarding “universal human rights,” enforcing “universal human values” and spreading “freedom and democracy” around the world is being stomped into the dirt, having excrement poured all over it, and being stomped into the dirt some more. As the curtain descends on this final act of Pax Americana, the image of the orange enfant terrible and the senile puppet with his child-nurse in tow playing on the teeter-totter of electoral dysfunction on the playground of second childhood will forever remain etched into the retinas of the whole world. The whole world will then be able to move on and look for worthier role models and for less corrupt policemen. And that’s progress!

    The collapse of the USA will make the collapse of the USSR look like a stroll through a leafy park and a boat ride on a placid pond. I’ve been saying this for 15 years now. My message is still there, for all those who wish to understand what’s been happening and to keep their sanity.

  • ​​​​​​​Interest In Sherman Tank On Popular Auction Site Soars With America Trapped In Chaos
    ​​​​​​​Interest In Sherman Tank On Popular Auction Site Soars With America Trapped In Chaos

    Tyler Durden

    Fri, 11/13/2020 – 22:40

    When it comes to the virus pandemic in America, and the resulting socio-economic implosion, millions of folks have been panic buying food, guns, ammo, and gold.

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    By the day, violent crime is surging across major metros as depressionary unemployment has left more than ten million without jobs. Demand for armored vehicles indistinguishable from an ordinary Mercedes-Benz, Toyota, Range Rover, Cadillac, and or Lincoln have been increasing, but why stop there? 

    Up for auction this week on Bring A Trailer is a 1943 M4A1 Sherman tank, “one of fewer than 20 known-running M4A1s,” according to the listing. 

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    On Wednesday morning, the tank had a bid of $300,000, with eight days left in the auction. An impressive 3,581 watchers and more than 125,000 people have viewed this online auction.

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    This is one of the most famous second world war tanks serving the Allied Forces; nearly 50,000 variations of the tank were built. The tank has been “demilitarized,” according to the listing. 

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    “Additional equipment includes a Spicer five-speed manual transmission, a demilitarized 75mm main gun, a propane-fired .50 caliber replica machine gun on the turret, and a dummy .30 caliber machine gun in the forward hull,” the listing said. 

    Watch: Sherman M4A1 – Running, Driving And Walk Through

    A big question certainly going through your mind is if it’s legal to own a tank in the US? 

    According to DriveTanks.com, the answer is apparently “yes.” 

    “There are no US Federal restrictions to owning a tank with a demilitarized (disabled) main gun. You may operate it on private land without restrictions. You will also need to determine if there are state or local laws prohibiting tank ownership. If you can own a tractor, you can own a tank!” 

    Hiding in an undisclosed warehouse in Baltimore City, or at least somewhere in the Baltimore metro area, Under Armour founder Kevin Plank apparently owns a tank. As to why? Well, that’s an excellent question.

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    American CEOs are trading in their corporate jets for corporate tanks. 

  • The Racial-Justice War On Merit-Based Schools: It's an Injustice Against Excellence, Critics Say
    The Racial-Justice War On Merit-Based Schools: It’s an Injustice Against Excellence, Critics Say

    Tyler Durden

    Fri, 11/13/2020 – 22:20

    Submitted by Vince Bielski, of Real Clear Investigations

    At a virtual town hall in Brooklyn about how the pandemic will change admissions to high-performing selective schools, New York City officials got a lecture on systemic racism.

    “Racism is foundational in all of our institutions, in our government, our economy, our health-care system, our legal system and our education system,” Ayanna Behin, president of a school district council, said at the June meeting.

    “It’s our recommendation that we prioritize the end of racial segregation in our schools.” 

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    Thomas Jefferson High School for Science and Technology: Pushing through changes to competitive admissions

    Behin’s comments reflect a racially charged debate in New York City and across the country invoking Jim Crow-era language to describe an education flashpoint more recent than old-fashioned enforced segregation. The conflict — influenced by critical race theory, the idea that racism is embedded in the structures of society — is over disparate racial and ethnic admissions, which critics deem so pernicious that seemingly neutral yardsticks like grades and test scores are actually reinforcing them. These critics aim to integrate coveted, elite schools by removing the performance barriers that many white and Asian parents defend as fair and objective measures of achievement. 

    In one of the recent conflicts, the school superintendent in Fairfax County, Va., is pushing through changes to the competitive admissions process at Thomas Jefferson High School for Science and Technology, the nation’s top-ranked high school, over protests from Asian parents who say their kids are being penalized for working hard. At Lowell High School in San Francisco, a plan to drop merit-based admissions for next year because of the pandemic created an uproar at a virtual school board meeting in October from parents who want to protect its reputation for rigor. 

    In New York City, advocates, backed by hundreds of staffers in the Department of Education, are demanding more sweeping changes in the nation’s largest school district. They are calling for the end to admissions screening for almost 200 selective middle schools, or more than a third of the total. And a mayoral advisory panel has also urged the city to rid elementary schools of gifted and talented programs and erase the “gifted and talented” wording from the system because it’s not in keeping with the spirit of integration. 

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    New York City Schools Chancellor Richard Carranza and Mayor Bill de Blasio: Pushing sweeping changes in the nation’s largest school district.

    “I strongly support the elimination of middle-school screens citywide,” says Miriam Nunberg, a civil rights attorney and leader in the movement to desegregate schools. “I found the admissions process we have in our districts to be so discriminatory.” 

    In this polarizing battle, parents who support screening for accelerated education are tarred as racists on social media. The idea that all students benefit by vying for admissions to top schools because it nurtures a drive for academic excellence is dismissed as a tool of segregation. Even moderate proposals to expand gifted and talented programs and make them more diverse face strong opposition. 

    “Our culture and economy thrive on excellence. When I think of New York, I think of artistic and intellectual excellence,” says Jonathan Plucker, a professor at Johns Hopkins University who focuses on making accelerated education more accessible to disadvantaged students.

    “And now, particularly in urban districts we are seeing a backlash, where the ideology is turning against excellence. We are institutionalizing anti-intellectualism, and that has long-term implications for us.”

    Critical race theory provides the underpinnings for the backlash against selective schools. According to the theory, first developed by legal scholars, curriculums, teaching methods, assessments and much else are designed to reinforce dominant white culture, mute the voices that challenge this supremacy and cast black students as deficient, according to a paper in the International Journal of Qualitative Studies in Education.  To help these students, teachers need to enlighten them about the harmful effects of racism and prod them to succeed “as a form of counterinsurgency.” In New York City, critical race theory is leaving a mark in the rollout of a new culturally responsive curriculum. 

    While the term segregation harkens back to a time when kids were forced to go to separate schools, today the highly fraught word is used to describe a statistical reality in many districts around the country. 

    With 1.1 million students, New York City has one of the most segregated systems in the country, a result of entrenched housing patterns and the proliferation of selective schools. Today blacks and Latinos make up about two-thirds of public school students. But in more than half of city schools, they comprise over 80% of the students and sometimes beyond 90%. 

    In this system, achievement gaps have remained remarkably wide. In 2019, only about a third of black and Latino students reached proficiency on math and English state tests for grades 3 through 8. That compares with roughly two-thirds for white and Asian kids. But the question of how to improve academic achievement for blacks and Latinos defies easy answers. 

    Advocates say greater diversity is the remedy. They are pushing the city to replace test, grade and attendance-based admissions with a system designed to mix students of all backgrounds and academic abilities together. In such integrated schools, low achievers rise partly because of the influence of high achievers, who don’t regress academically, says Halley Potter, a senior fellow at the Century Foundation who researches education policy. What’s more, students from different racial and ethnic groups build bonds at a time when America’s social fabric is fraying. 

    Parents fighting to keep selective schools in New York City reject the everybody-wins narrative as naive. Yiatin Chu, co-founder of Parent Leaders for Accelerated Curriculum and Education (PLACE), says students of all groups have a wide range of abilities and lumping them together in classrooms makes it impossible for teachers to challenge all of them at once. A 2013 study, published in Gifted Child Quarterly, of five diverse elementary schools in several states found reading levels in classrooms ranging from about two years below grade level to about six years above it.

    “I see a huge disparity in terms of abilities, and is it reasonable to expect our teachers in big classrooms to differentiate the teaching to really meet the needs of all students in that class?” says Chu, who has a child in public school.

    “The truth is no, they cannot.”

    PLACE is fighting an uphill battle against the education department. New York City Schools Chancellor Richard Carranza has called screened schools “antithetical” to public education and has talked in vague terms about changing gifted-and-talented programs. Last year, as PLACE was advocating to keep admissions screens, the department reached out to integration groups, telling them to “make more noise.”

    While advocates say academic research overwhelmingly shows the benefits of integrated schools, there is in fact significant disagreement among scholars. Their findings vary widely largely because of the difficulty of isolating the effects of peers and schools on performance from other powerful influences like family and its socioeconomic status, says Eric Hanushek of Stanford’s Hoover Institution.

    David Armor of George Mason University carefully controlled for students’ backgrounds in a robust 2018 study. He found that the socioeconomic composition of schools had a negligible impact on results in math and reading tests in grades 3 through 8 across three states and over multiple years.

    Even scholars who support policies to make schools more diverse do not stress short-term performance benefits. Gary Orfield at UCLA says 50 years of research has produced a preponderance of evidence of a small gain in test scores. The bigger benefits come as poor kids of color learn personal skills and make connections with successful students and college counselors in integrated schools, boosting their chances of getting into universities and finding good jobs.

    “If you’re in a school that’s connected to information about colleges and jobs, you’re much better off,” says Orfield, who co-directs UCLA’s Civil Rights Project, an advocacy group.

    “People in our society get jobs through contacts.”

    For his part, Armor says he opposes mandatory desegregation because it causes middle-class flight, making segregation worse. He points to Jefferson County, Ky., where the number of white students plunged from 89,000 the year after a mandatory integration plan was rolled out in 1975 to 48,000 four decades later, creating a district where the majority of students are black and Latino.

    “New York City would be making a very big mistake by getting rid of its selective schools,” Armor says.

    “It will probably lose another chunk of its middle-class population. If they would just look at the data.” 

    Admissions Based on Economic Status

    If the city does stop screening for middle school admissions, it could follow other districts around the county that have assigned students to schools based on their economic status to spread out poor kids more equally and reduce segregation. The number of school districts and charter networks pursuing a form of economic integration has grown from just two in 1996 to more than 100 today, according to research by The Century Foundation. The most common approaches to integration, such as redrawing district boundaries, have mostly kept students closer to home and reduced the need for the kind of busing that ignited protests several decades ago.

    Foundation Fellow Stefan Lallinger says the current outpouring of support for Black Lives Matter is adding to the momentum for school integration.

    “We can’t tackle racial injustice without addressing the fact that our public schools are very segregated along lines of race and class,” says Lallinger, a Ph.D. from Harvard.

    “I absolutely anticipate that more districts and organizations across this county will be committed to this issue.” 

    New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio, who campaigned on a pledge to reduce inequity, waited several years before tackling the contentious issue. The mayor’s efforts to end the use of a single test for admission into the city’s elite specialized high schools, including Brooklyn Tech where his son attended, were stymied by state officials amid a flurry of protests from parents.

    Last year, the mayor’s School Diversity Advisory Group took aim at somewhat easier targets — selective middle schools and gifted and talented programs that cater to “economic privilege.” The group’s report said families with the means to prep their young kids – including many relatively poor Asians who scrimp and save to pay for test classes — give them an advantage over black and Latino students. Together they received only 18% of the offers to join elementary gifted-and-talented programs in 2017. 

    Brooklyn’s District 15, a politically progressive area that integrated its middle schools in 2019, is touted as a model for the rest of the city. Nunberg, the civil rights attorney, joined a working group of parents, educators and community organization members that led a series of public workshops to build support for the plan.

    Students from low-income families made up about 52% of the entire district but were heavily clustered together, constituting almost 100% of students in two schools in a Latino neighborhood. At the three top-performing selective middle schools, poor kids made up less than a third while white students were more than 50% of enrollment.

    To integrate the schools, screening was ended. Students entering the sixth grade ranked their school choices and entered a lottery. Seats were prioritized for low-income kids to distribute them out more equally at the 11 middle schools. High performers could no longer expect to get into a top schools, but only a small number of parents pulled their kids from the district. 

    The plan led to a big drop in segregation. But the district’s political bent was a key to its success and finding support for similar shifts in school demographics will be harder in the city’s more moderate and conservative districts. 

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    The Montgomery County school system in Maryland touts its “equity journey” on its website. New York City could follow its lead in widening its outreach for low-income “gifted and talented” students.

    The big question is whether the performance of the disadvantaged students in the Brooklyn district will improve. Potter of The Century Foundation points to several cities including Cambridge, Mass., where integration improved academic outcomes. Other areas, like Jefferson County, have struggled to close the achievement gap.

    The disruption from the pandemic, particularly on low-income students, would complicate any attempt to measure short-term academic effects in the Brooklyn district. But the long-term impact may never be known either. The diversity plan didn’t include a method to evaluate whether it will improve academic performance over time.

    “That’s educational malpractice,” says Plucker of Johns Hopkins.

    “If you are going to do this, you have to have systems in place to study the effects on achievement.”

    Asian parents in New York City mobilized last year to protect the selective education that’s been a gateway to the middle class. PLACE, which now has 2,000 supporters of all backgrounds, and Plucker seek to change the debate that pits equity against excellence.

    “We can have a system that provides equitable opportunities for students and also promotes excellence,” Plucker says.

    For instance, instead of snuffing out accelerated education, Chu says, the city should expand it to achieve its laudable diversity goals. Today, less than 15% of the city’s more than 700 elementary schools have gifted-and-talented programs. By spreading them to all elementary school, more kids from every community will get seats, setting them on a path to selective middle schools. The single-test G&T admissions process also has to change to allow more ways for all students to be selected.

    “Parents want these programs to challenge their kids,” says Chu, an immigrant who attended an elite specialized high school in New York City.

    “Why are we not creating more of them?”

    New York could follow the lead of Montgomery County in Maryland. It used to depend on parents to apply for elementary gifted-and-talented spots, which filled a handful of magnet programs with about 750 mostly Asian and white kids. Once educators began universal screening of all students, they found thousands of kids, many of them black and Latino, who would benefit from accelerated education and won seats through an assessment of report cards and tests. Since the 2016-17 school year, the program has spread to four additional magnets and more than 40 elementary schools with classes serving over 4,000 kids, says Kurshanna Dean, supervisor of accelerated and enriched instruction.

    “My advice to New York is to expand your programs, not remove them,” Dean says.

    The pandemic has now brought the controversy to a head. The cancellation of state tests and modification of grading means that selective middle schools don’t have the data for fourth graders that they typically use to determine admission. Less reliable measures of future performance, such as third grade test scores, are available.

    The department is now devising a new admissions policy for the next school year, Deputy Chancellor Josh Wallack said at the Brooklyn town hall. He made clear that the disproportionate effects of the pandemic would guide the department’s decision, which is expected to be announced soon.

    “Black and Latinx New Yorkers have gotten sick and died at greater rates than others,” Wallack said. “These forms of discrimination have deep historical roots and we must reckon with them as we make policy.”

    Advocates see a win for integration in the making. If the department ends middle school screening for next year, that’s a big step toward a permanent ban.

    “The city should absolutely end middle school screening for this coming year,” says Lallinger, who recently served as a special assistant to Chancellor Carranza. “And going forward it presents a wonderful opportunity to rethink the way certain schools get to select which students they serve.”

  • These Are The Last COVID-Free Countries On Earth
    These Are The Last COVID-Free Countries On Earth

    Tyler Durden

    Fri, 11/13/2020 – 22:00

    Surprisingly, there are still some countries out there that have not reported a single case of Covid-19.

    However, as Statista’s Niall McCarthy notes, the two most dubious candidates are certainly Turkmenistan and North Korea, authoritarian states that still deny the pandemic has spread within their borders. Observers do dispute that, however, stating that its almost certain both countries have experienced cases of Covid-19. In Turkmenistan, there have been reports of people experiencing suspected coronavirus symptoms and dying while the government has remained silent. In North Korea, there was a suspected case in the border city of Kaesong which prompted Kim Jong-un to impose a three-week lockdown on the region. It was lifted while state media never commented on the outcome.

    Back in April, a lack of public appearances by Kim Jong-un led to rumours that some form of crisis, possibly Covid-19, had indeed gripped the country. He later reappeared at the opening of a fertilizer factory, alive and well, after a 20 day absence. While experts dispute North Korea’s claim that it has had no cases, it is entirely possible that its isolation from the rest of the world is now working in its favour. The country was also one of the first to close its borders in response to the threat and that early action may have proven effective in containing the spread of the disease. Excluding the censorship and secretive nature of the regimes in North Korea and Turkmenistan, eight other countries have reliably reported no cases of Covid-19.

    Infographic: The Last Coronavirus-Free Countries On Earth | Statista

    You will find more infographics at Statista

    They are all island nations located in the South Pacific: Palau, Micronesia, Kiribati, Tuvalu, Samoa and Tonga.

    Again, this is a case where isolation is the best defense against the pandemic, though the countries are still reeling from the virus despite the lack of physical cases. Tourism is hugely important in the region and hotels and beaches are lying empty.

    With Vanuatu reporting its first case of Covid-19, along with cases in Fiji and the Solomon Islands, the global pandemic is inching ever closer to the few countries that have escaped its wrath so far.

  • A Biden Presidency Would Be A Dream Scenario For Our Corporate Overlords
    A Biden Presidency Would Be A Dream Scenario For Our Corporate Overlords

    Tyler Durden

    Fri, 11/13/2020 – 21:40

    Authored by Michael Snyder via TheMostImportantNews.com,

    One of the biggest reasons why the elite hate Donald Trump so much is because they can’t control him.  But if Joe Biden ends up in the White House, that won’t be a problem.  Our corporate overlords know exactly what they are getting with Biden, and that is why they backed him so strongly during the campaign.  In fact, if our corporate overlords could create a perfect president from scratch, they would end up with someone that looks very similar to Joe Biden.

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    Let me explain what I mean.  One thing that the elite value in any politician is weakness, and today Joe Biden is very weak.  At one time he had a little bit more of a backbone, but at this point he has deteriorated very badly and his physical, mental and emotional weaknesses are apparent to everyone.

    But a president can’t afford to be weak, because pressure is put on the White House from a thousand different directions on a daily basis.  Any sign of weakness from a president is like blood in the water, and the political sharks are going to be all over him.

    Ultimately, Biden will be exceptionally easy for the elite to manipulate because of how weak he has become, but the downside for the elite is that Biden may not last that long in the White House because of how rapidly he is physically and mentally falling apart.

    If our corporate overlords were creating a perfect president from scratch, they would also want someone that owes them favors, and Joe Biden owes them big time.

    In the months leading up to the election, the corporate media and the big tech companies made sure that any negative stories about Biden were suppressed, and ultra-wealthy donors all over the nation absolutely showered him with money.  In fact, Biden raised money from the megadonor class like we have never seen before.  The following comes from the New York Times…

    From Hollywood to Silicon Valley to Wall Street, Mr. Biden’s campaign has aggressively courted the megadonor class. It has raised almost $200 million from donors who gave at least $100,000 to his joint operations with the Democratic Party in the last six months — about twice as much as President Trump raised from six-figure donors in that time, according to an analysis of new federal records.

    Without the backing of the elite, Biden never would have won, and Biden understands this very well.

    The Wall Street crowd was particularly generous this campaign cycle.  In late October, CNBC reported that they were on pace to give a total of 74 million dollars to Biden’s campaign…

    People in the securities and investment industry will finish the 2020 election cycle contributing over $74 million to back Joe Biden’s candidacy for president, a much larger sum than what President Donald Trump raised from Wall Street, according to new data from the nonpartisan Center for Responsive Politics.

    Needless to say, you don’t give someone 74 million dollars without expecting something in return.

    And some of the names that shelled out big money for Biden are quite recognizable…

    Tim Geithner, former Treasury secretary under President Barack Obama and current president of private equity firm Warburg Pincus, contributed $150,000 to the Biden Action Fund in August. Antonio Gracias, founder of Valor Equity Partners, and Jonathan Shulkin, a partner at the same firm, each shelled out more than $300,000 that same month to the committee.

    John Doerr, chairman of venture capital firm Kleiner Perkins, gave over $355,000 to the Biden Action Fund last quarter. Stephen Mandel, founder of Connecticut-based hedge fund Lone Pine Capital, contributed more than $310,000. Pete Muller, founder of investment manager PDT Partners, gave the committee $360,000. Jonathan Soros, an investor and son of billionaire George Soros, gave just under $145,000.

    In America today, it takes a tremendous amount of money to win elections on the national level.

    When I was running for Congress, I did not get even a single penny from PACs, and the guy that ended up winning was absolutely showered with PAC money.  I learned a very hard lesson about how our system works, and it is a lesson that I will never forget.

    Thirdly, if the elite could create a perfect president from scratch, they would want someone that is deeply corrupt.

    I know that may sound strange, but this is how politics in America works.

    When a politician has skeletons in his or her closet, that gives the elite leverage, and our corporate overlords absolutely love to have leverage on our politicians.

    As far as Joe Biden is concerned, I don’t even have to say anything.  Everyone has seen the hair sniffing videos, everyone has heard the Tara Reade allegations, and all of that Hunter Biden stuff is still out there.

    If Joe Biden falls in line and is always careful to do what they want, the elite will make sure that Joe Biden’s skeletons remain buried.

    But if and when it becomes necessary, they will nail Biden with all of the dirty stuff from his past.

    Many Americans wonder why it seems like we always have so many deeply corrupt politicians in Washington, and of course the truth is that we have so many corrupt politicians because the elite want it that way.

    If Trump’s legal challenges are not successful and Biden wins the presidency, the elite will be greatly relieved.

    It wasn’t Donald Trump’s policies that enraged the elite so much.

    It was the fact that they didn’t have control over him.

    But under a Biden administration things will be dramatically different.  His transition team includes executives or former executives from Airbnb, Amazon, Booz Allen, Capital One, Dell, DropBox, JPMorgan, LinkedIn, Lyft, Stripe, Visa and Uber.  And his agency review team for the Department of Defense contains eight individuals with direct links to the weapons industry…

    On Novem­ber 10, Biden announced his agency review teams, which he says ​“are respon­si­ble for under­stand­ing the oper­a­tions of each agency, ensur­ing a smooth trans­fer of pow­er, and prepar­ing for Pres­i­dent-elect Biden and Vice Pres­i­dent-elect Har­ris and their cab­i­net to hit the ground run­ning on Day One.”

    Of the 23 peo­ple who com­prise the Depart­ment of Defense agency review team, eight of them — or just over a third — list their ​“most recent employ­ment” as orga­ni­za­tions, think tanks or com­pa­nies that either direct­ly receive mon­ey from the weapons indus­try, or are part of this indus­try.

    What I have covered in this article is just the tip of the iceberg.

    After four years under Trump, the elite are extremely eager to be back in control, and they are almost there.

    The Biden administration will likely be a wonderful time for them, but things won’t go so well for the rest of us.

    *  *  *

    Michael’s new book entitled “Lost Prophecies Of The Future Of America” is now available in paperback and for the Kindle on Amazon.

  • Saudi Crown Prince Vows "Iron Fist" Against Extremists Targeting Western Interests
    Saudi Crown Prince Vows “Iron Fist” Against Extremists Targeting Western Interests

    Tyler Durden

    Fri, 11/13/2020 – 21:20

    On Wednesday of this week a terror attack targeted a World War I commemoration event in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia resulting in several people wounded. The ceremony was attended by Western diplomats at a French Catholic cemetery on the occasion of European countries observing Armistice day or Remembrance day, November 11, which this year marked 102 years since the end of the war.

    The Islamic State terror group has since claimed it was behind the IED attack, with its propaganda arm Amaq describing the attack which “primarily targeted the French consul”. However, there’s been nothing that’s clearly validated that ISIS conducted it. Two weeks prior to this, a guard protecting the French consulate in Jeddah was injured during a knife attack which appeared “retaliation” for controversial statements made by President Emmanuel Macron in the wake of recent terrorism targeting French citizens.

    In response, Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman (MbS) has vowed to strike at extremist targets with an “iron fist”.

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    Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, image via PBS.

    “We will continue to confront any extremist… behavior and ideas,” MbS told a gathering of the Shura Council, considered the highest government advisory body. The Thursday remarks also come after MbS, next in line to become king and already considered de facto ruler, has for years sought to present himself as a “reformer”. 

    He’s also tried to restored his severely damaged reputation and international standing following the October 2, 2018 killing of Jamal Khashoggi at the Saudi consulate on Turkey, widely believed to have been personally ordered by the crown prince. 

    “We will continue to strike with an iron fist against all those who want to harm our security and stability,” MbS said in this latest address. He further vowed “painful and severe punishment” for jihadist militants caught in the kingdom.

    On the very same day (Thursday) there was another incident, but this time targeting the Saudi embassy in The Hague. A Dutch man was arrested after firing multiple gunshots and the diplomatic compound, which lightly damaged the building while causing no injuries. 

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    Terror attacks inside Saudi Arabia on Western targets remain relatively rare, and signal domestic groups are likely stepping up efforts to sow chaos inside the kingdom, potentially disrupting Riyadh’s economic and diplomatic initiatives with the West.

    Riyadh’s prime security interests have also been to protect the kingdom given any major terror attack could severely disrupt deepening Western economic ties and major infrastructure projects on Saudi soil.

  • Las Vegas Columnist Ran A Test And County Officials Accepted Fake Signatures On 8 Different Ballots
    Las Vegas Columnist Ran A Test And County Officials Accepted Fake Signatures On 8 Different Ballots

    Tyler Durden

    Fri, 11/13/2020 – 21:00

    Authored by Victor Joecks via The Las Vegas Review Journal,

    Clark County election officials accepted my signature on eight ballot return envelopes during the general election. It’s more evidence that signature verification is a flawed security measure.

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    For months, election officials have told Nevadans not to worry about ballots piling up in apartment trash cans or sent to wrong addresses.

    “Discarded mail ballots cannot just be picked up and voted by anyone,” a fact sheet from the secretary of state’s office says.

    “All mail ballots must be signed on the ballot return envelope. This signature is used to authenticate the voter and confirm that it was actually the voter and not another person who returned the mail ballot.”

    I wanted to test that claim by simulating what might happen if someone returned ballots that didn’t belong to him or her. Plenty of people had this opportunity. Billy Geurin, a 10-year Las Vegas resident, found five loose ballots in his apartment mailroom. A reader emailed me a picture of a pile of mail on the side of the road, which included loose ballots. There are numerous pictures of similar examples on social media.

    Nine people participated in this test. I wrote their names in cursive using my normal handwriting. They then copied my version of their name onto their ballot envelope. This two-step process was necessary to ensure no laws were broken.

    On Monday, I asked Clark County Registrar Joe Gloria about this scenario. If ballots signed by someone else “came through, we would still have the signature match to rely on for identity,” he said. Asked if he was confident the safeguard would identify those ballots, he said, “I’m confident that the process has been working throughout this process.”

    He was wrong. Eight of the nine ballots went through. In other words, signature verification had an 89 percent failure rate in catching mismatched signatures.

    This could explain how a ballot “signed” by Rosemarie Hartle, who died in 2017, made it through signature verification, as reported by 8 News Now. It could explain how Jill Stokke, a longtime Las Vegas resident, was told the signature on her ballot matched, even though she said she never received it.

    County officials aren’t working proactively to determine whether unscrupulous actors abused this vulnerability in a widespread fashion. Gloria’s office doesn’t “have an investigatory team.” He said his office catches fraudulent votes “when they’re reported to us.” So if a criminal doesn’t admit he committed voter fraud, Clark County is unlikely to find out about it. Willful ignorance isn’t an election security strategy.

    Leave aside the presidential race. Fewer than 200 votes separate the leading candidates in Senate District 5. In 2018, state Sen. Keith Pickard won his race by 24 votes. Even small amounts of fraud can swing results.

    It’s unclear how much voter fraud took place in Nevada. But it’s clear signature verification isn’t the fail-safe security check elections officials made it out to be.

  • Time To Go All-In The "Big Short 3.0"? 80% Of New York Hotels On Verge Of Default
    Time To Go All-In The “Big Short 3.0”? 80% Of New York Hotels On Verge Of Default

    Tyler Durden

    Fri, 11/13/2020 – 20:45

    Now that hedge funds have finally started piling into the “Big Short 3.0″ trade, which as we first explained back in June is basically shifting the CMBS short from malls to hotels (via the overexposed CMBX Series 9 index whose BBB- tranche is the fulcrum), every incremental development in the sector is closely scrutinized.

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    And judging by the lack of appreciation in the BBB- tranche of the CMBX Series 9 index which has the highest exposure to hotels – despite a very modest rebound earlier this week on vaccine hopes – developments continue to show accelerating deterioration with little sign of recovery on the horizon.

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    A recent tailwind blast for the CMBX 9 shorts came from a September report from NorthStar according to which, without aid 74% percent of US hotels said they expect to lay off more employees, with a whopping two thirds of properties warning they won’t be able to last another six months at the current projected revenue and occupancy levels. Needless to say, should two-thirds of the US hotel industry fold, shorting the CMBX S9 BBB- could well be the most profitable (institutionally sized) short in recent history when the Fed has effectively made shorting impossible.

    Since then it’s only gotten worse for the hotel sector, which as even the FT now writes has hit New York hotel industry especially hard with four out of five properties underpinning commercial mortgage bonds now on the verge of default.

    Normally among most vibrant of global hotel markets, New York has been hammered the coronavirus pandemic has left business travel and tourism deeply depressed ravaging cash flows. The effects have ricocheted into financial markets and hit the nearly $4bn of hotel mortgages in New York that are bundled into commercial mortgage-backed securities particularly hard.

    The virus has also compounded years of overbuilding and created a glut of vacant hotel rooms. And while the prospect of a coronavirus vaccine, following this week’s breakthrough by Pfizer and Germany’s BioNTech, offers a glimmer of hope, it is unlikely to come soon and avert a bleak winter for hotel owners and the investors that lent them money.

    How bad is it?

    According to Vijay Dandapani, chief executive of the Hotel Association of New York City, if half the city’s 640 hotels survive it will be a “great” outcome.  While occupancy rates have recovered from their worst point in April where occupancy was down more than 60% year on year, they remain 20% lower than for the same month in 2019, a level which means much of the debt backing the properties will be impaired (i.e., default). Should New York impose a new round of draconian lockdowns, it will only get worse. Dandapani said that a best case scenario in which a vaccine is authorized would have “zero impact” on the hotel industry for the rest of the year, and possibly lead to the return of some tourism-related business in early 2021.

    “But it’s fickle,” he said. “Realistically we aren’t going to see any improvement until the second quarter . . . The industry is really bleeding. It’s not just on life support, it’s comatose.”

    For proof look no further than the latest data out of CRE consultants TREPP, according to which 37.7% of all New York hotels underpinning CMBS deals now sit on a watchlist meant to warn investors a mortgage is about be transferred to debt collectors known as special servicers. A loan may be added to the watchlist for a number of reasons, such as if the borrower’s income has dropped or they have recently missed a payment on their mortgage. In any case, once it hits special servicing, the loan is effectively in default unless the debtor and creditor manage to work out some agreement where the debt will remain “whole” after some pre-agreed restructuring.

    What’s scarier is that a further 44.7% of loans have already been transferred to special servicers to either find a way to get borrowers paying their mortgage or to foreclose on the properties.

    Together, it means more than 80% of the city’s hotels backing CMBS deals, approximately $3.1bn, are impacted adversely from coronavirus, far more than the national average of 71%.

    “It’s terrible. There is no demand right now,” Manus Clancy, head of research at Trepp told the FT. “We’re going into a period of time when you would normally expect demand to be high. It’s the holiday season. People want to come to New York. They want to see the Thanksgiving parade and see the store fronts and go to Broadway. It’s now going to be a very dark time.”

    One place that is already dark is the 476-room Hilton Times Square, which hotel closed permanently last month after its owner, Sunstone Hotel Investors, handed back the keys to lenders. The property backs a $76.5MM loan that makes up 17.4% of a 2011 CMBS deal. The mortgage on the loan had already been over 90 days delinquent in August. Sunstone Hotel Investors recently valued the property at $61m, down from $246m in 2010. This means that the Loan to Value is now well above 100% and – all else equal – the creditors are looking at losses of at least 20%.

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    The Hilton Times Square closed last month after its owner handed back the keys to lenders.

    Another Times Square hotel, called The Hotel, admitted that revenues had become “nothing short of catastrophic” when it asked for 90 days’ forbearance from paying its mortgage, according to the special servicer’s report. S&P downgraded the previously triple B minus, investment grade-rated tranche of the deal — which is also heavily exposed to retail properties — to the junk rating of B plus. It will be in default as soon as the forbearance expires and is not extended.

    Ironically, even one of Trump’s own properties was also caught up in the turmoil. While all of Trump’s four properties bundled into commercial mortgage-backed securities are current on their loan payments, Trepp placed one – the $6.5m mortgage on the Trump International Hotel at 1 Central Park West – on its watchlist after the property’s income fell substantially.

    “I think New York is going to struggle for a while,” said Jen Ripper, head of CMBS at Penn Mutual Asset Management. “It is highly dependent on tourism and business travel.”

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    The Roosevelt hotel in midtown Manhattan, which opened in 1924, is to close.

    As the FT concludes, “coronavirus has upended the investment thesis for large cities such as New York. Tourism has vanished and analysts warn business travel may never return as companies realise they can function without spending money on expensive business trips to big cities.”

    It’s also why, as we said as early as June, shorting hotel-exposed CMBS is now the latest Big Short (version 3.0) in credit, after the Big Short 2.0, which focused on malls, made billions in profits to investors such as Carl Icahn.

    Dave Goodson, head of securitized fixed income at Voya Investment Management said “urban core” property has moved from the area that owners sought exposure to being the sector of greatest concern. “It’s been turned on its head,” he added.

    It’s also why until there is a widely accepted covid vaccine and until tourism make a complete return, shorting the fulcrum BBB- tranche of the CMBS 9 index will be the best way to profit from the devastation unleashed by the pandemic, especially since the Fed has so far refused to intervene and purchase any commercial real estate-linked securities. Of course, if and when Powell does step into the CMBX market, all bets are off.

  • FEC Chairman Says He Believes 'There Is Voter Fraud' In Key States
    FEC Chairman Says He Believes ‘There Is Voter Fraud’ In Key States

    Tyler Durden

    Fri, 11/13/2020 – 20:44

    Authored by Jack Phillips via The Epoch Times,

    The chairman of the Federal Elections Commission (FEC) stated that he believes there is evidence of voter fraud and other alleged irregularities.

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    In a recent interview, FEC Chairman Trey Trainor said reports of fraud in some battleground states are credible “otherwise they would allow the [poll] observers to go in,” referring to reports of some polling areas refusing to allow GOP observers to check on the process on Election Day and the days after.

    “When you have claims of, you know, 10,000 people who don’t live in the state of Nevada having voted in Nevada, you have the video… they’re (poll workers) either duplicating a spoiled ballot right there or they’re in the process of just marking a ballot that came in blank for a voter,” Trainor told Newsmax.

    “That’s a process that needs to be observed by election observers.”

    In the interview, he agreed with Trump’s campaign lawsuits, while saying that questionable actions by elections officials in several states could make the election illegitimate.

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    Trainor, an appointee of President Donald Trump, noted that state laws allow those observers to be there, and “if they’re not,” then it’s an “illegitimate election.”

    “Our whole political system is based upon transparency to avoid the appearance of corruption,” he said the interview while alleging that Pennsylvania and other states have not been transparent. “I do believe that there is voter fraud taking place in these places,” he added.

    Pennsylvania Secretary of State Kathy Boockvar, a Democrat who is in charge of the state’s elections, has denied claims there is fraud or irregularities in her state.

    “I swear an oath that I am here to represent, to oversee elections—fair, free, safe, secure, and accessible elections,” Boockvar told the Morning Call newspaper.

    “I don’t care who is on the ballot. I don’t care who is running against them. I want to make sure every candidate has an opportunity to run and win and make sure that every vote for or against them is counted accurately.” She added: “And I will fight to the end on behalf of any candidate. I don’t care whether I agree with them or I don’t agree with them.”

    Joe Gloria, the registrar of Clark County in Nevada, rejected the Trump campaign’s allegations of voter fraud as well as the claim that 10,000 people voted out-of-state in a news conference last week.

    The Department of Homeland Security (DHS)’s Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency on Thursday concluded that the Nov. 3 election “was the most secure in American history,” saying that “election officials are reviewing and double checking the entire election process prior to finalizing the result.”

  • Watch: Firefighting Robot Helps Extinguish LA Warehouse Fire   
    Watch: Firefighting Robot Helps Extinguish LA Warehouse Fire   

    Tyler Durden

    Fri, 11/13/2020 – 20:40

    In October, the Los Angeles City Fire Department (LAFD) deployed America’s first robotic firefighting vehicle, putting out a fire on the first day.

    Weeks later, Thermite RS3 (manufactured by Textron: Howe & Howe Technologies) continues to battle blazes, this time over the weekend in Alhambra, a city located in the western San Gabriel Valley region of Los Angeles County. 

    RS3, shaped like a mini-tank with a v-shaped plow capable of pushing debris – and a frontal nozzle can shoot or spray either water or foam at 2,500 gallons per minute – was deployed at a warehouse fire packed with wooden model ships.

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    “Because firefighters had difficulty getting access to the basement,” RS3 was deployed by LAFD, said ABC7 Eyewitness News. 

    A video of the blaze shows RS3 appearing on camera around the one minute mark. The robot, armed with the plow and water nozzle, makes its way down a service ramp to the building’s basement, where it begins to extinguish the fire.

    LAFD appears to be leveraging technology to enhance firefighting operations, a move that is reducing risks to firefighters and saving lives. 

    However, when it comes to the impact of automation (robots, AI, etc.) on firefighter jobs, these robots, in the meantime, will assist LAFD, though, down the line, it will result in the need for fewer firefighters. 

  • "Great Reset" Of Capitalism A Threat To Our Way Of Life: Australian Senator
    “Great Reset” Of Capitalism A Threat To Our Way Of Life: Australian Senator

    Tyler Durden

    Fri, 11/13/2020 – 20:20

    Authored by Caden Pearsen via The Epoch Times,

    A motion by One Nation leader Pauline Hanson calling on the Australian government to boycott the World Economic Forum’s (WEF) Great Reset agenda was blocked in the Senate on Nov. 11.

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    Powerful international leaders want to take advantage of the current economic chaos to “remake nations across the planet, because desperate populations are now ‘more reception to big visions of change,’” Justin Haskins, the editor-in-chief of StoppingSocialism.com and the editorial director of The Heartland Institute, wrote in an op-ed for The Epoch Times in July.

    Hanson said the policies of the Great Reset would destroy Australia’s economy, “push socialist and neo-Marxist policies” onto Australians, and “pave the way for big controlling government, suppression of free speech, and reduced property rights.”

    The proposal was defeated 2 – 37 after the Liberals and the Nationals allied with Labor and the Greens.

    “It is an absolute travesty that the Australian Government has sided with the globalists of the World Economic Forum and their Great Reset agenda against the interests of everyday Australians,” Hanson told The Epoch Times in a statement.

    “This is a group of global lefty elites—billionaires, business executives, and celebrities—who think they know better than us how to run our own country,” she said.

    However, South Australian Liberal Senator Anne Ruston rejected “the notion of boycotting discussions” on the Great Reset.

    She said the government participates in a variety of international forums designed to enhance collaboration but would not be part of any agreements that don’t reflect Australia’s values or interests.

    Victorian Greens Senator Janet Rice also rose to express opposition to the motion where she accused Hanson of “running scared of Agenda 21, the Illuminati, and the shadowy cabals that supposedly control the world.”

    Rice described the Great Reset agenda as a modest WEF initiative that aims for global cooperation to manage the direct consequences of the COVID-19 pandemic.

    “The truth is, unless we take this pandemic seriously and cooperate globally, dying of coronavirus actually has a much more serious impact on your individual freedoms and your economic freedoms,” Rice said.

    But what Rice described as a modest initiative, Prince Charles—a strong proponent of the Great Reset—described as “a chance to remake nations across the planet.”

    For Hanson and others, the Great Reset agenda is seeking to capitalise on the pandemic to “overturn lives, push control agendas, and meddle in social systems in countries across the world.”

    “This so-called reset is absolute rubbish and we should make a stand to play no part in it, to protect Australians and our way of life,” Hanson said.

    What is the ‘Great Reset’?

    In his op-ed, Justin Haskins wrote that global leaders, including Prince Charles, met at a virtual meeting held in June to call for a Great Reset of capitalism.

    Haskins said that many of those at the meeting support the elimination of the world’s current capitalist system and have promoted socialist policies—such as wealth taxes, Green New Deal-like programs, and national job guarantees and government incomes.

    “Among those who spoke at the event or expressed their support separately for the plan were Ma Jun, the chairman of the Green Finance Committee at the China Society for Finance and Banking and a member of the Monetary Policy Committee of the People’s Bank of China; António Guterres, the secretary-general of the United Nations; powerful union leaders; activists from groups such as Greenpeace International; CEOs and presidents of large corporations such as BP, MasterCard, and Microsoft; and officials from the International Monetary Fund.

    “But the person who has most clearly articulated the vision of the Great Reset is Klaus Schwab, the head of the World Economic Forum and one of the Reset’s most ardent supporters,” Haskins wrote.

    “Every country, from the United States to China, must participate, and every industry, from oil and gas to tech, must be transformed,” Schwab wrote in an article published on WEF’s website.

    “In short, we need a ‘Great Reset’ of capitalism.”

    Schwab also said that “all aspects of our societies and economies” must be “revamped,” “from education to social contracts and working conditions.”

    Haskins wrote that as terrifying as this might sound the worst was yet to come.

    At the June event, the WEF announced that the Great Reset agenda would be the focus of its next annual event in Davos, scheduled for January 2021.

    “At the Davos meeting, powerful business leaders, government officials, activists, and academics will promote the Great Reset and coordinate a massive worldwide campaign to promote their agenda,” Haskins wrote.

    For Haskins, the Great Reset agenda is a “dangerous moment for freedom, both in the United States and across the planet.”

    “Not only has government used the COVID-19 pandemic to increase its power, world leaders are now planning to expand it dramatically in the years to come through their Great Reset reforms,” he wrote. “If we don’t stop this radical move toward collectivism and the decimation of capitalism, the world’s freedom movement might never recover.”

  • Which Online Retailers Have The Lowest Prices
    Which Online Retailers Have The Lowest Prices

    Tyler Durden

    Fri, 11/13/2020 – 20:00

    While over the past two decades, Amazon gradually became the world’s largest online retailing monopoly by constantly undercutting its competitors on prices, resulting in deeply negative profit margins for years (offset by AWS), that changed in recent years when Amazon started flexing its monopoly muscles, gradually raising prices which it could do thanks to its dominant market position.

    As a result, when it comes to most prices in the electronics bucket, Amazon has some of the highest online prices now compared to such upstart online competitors as Walmart and Target, which are now in the unenviable position of having to undercut Amazon’s prices to win market share.

    So is it indeed the case that Amazon’s prices are now above its competitors? Not necessarily.

    This morning, Goldman published the takeaways from week 3 of its annual holiday pricing survey in which the bank captured the online prices of selected baskets of goods at WMT, TGT, AMZN, KR, ULTA, M, KSS, WSM, BBBY, JWN, DKS and Sephora as of November 10th. The product categories captured in this survey encompass consumer electronics, toys, HPC & consumables, kitchenware & houseware, activewear, and beauty (because of the earlier start to the season, the bank is comparing the third week of holiday deals this year, November 10th, to the third week of deals last year, December 12th).

    Here are some of the key observations:

    • Much of the shipping related promotional activity seen start in Week 2 persisted into Week 3, with some companies starting new offers, including Ulta’s offer of free shipping with no minimum and Macy’s $5 discount on same-day delivery. With capacity constraints and shipping surcharges, this dynamic is likely to be a headwind to gross margins this holiday season.

    • From pricing standpoint, there were higher promotions across all categories (particularly toys and kitchen/home baskets) on October 13th (which was day 1 of Prime Day) versus November 10th and October 27th. The pricing activity was mixed when comparing this week’s prices with October 27th as toy prices remained unchanged on average, beauty and HPC were higher while activewear, CE and kitchen had lower prices. Overall, as we get closer to Black Friday/Thanksgiving, promotional activity is expected to intensify once again.

    • There was a better availability of Consumer Electronics SKUs especially at AMZN vs. October 27th, however, out of stocks were more rampant at TGT for the toy basket. There were “higher out of stocks” on October 27th which was likely due to inventory sell through during Prime Day and the rival big sale events.

    For the purpose of this analysis we focus on the one consumer category that is most representative of current consumer demand and pricing trends: electronics; this is also the one category where hedonic “deflation” is most prevalent due to the constantly onslaught of new and improved products.

    The survey of prices included 38 selected consumer electronics SKUs from AMZN, WMT, TGT and BBY. Overall, Goldman’s survey found that the consumer electronics category was slightly more promotional as of November 10th compared to October 27th, as prices were 2.7% lower than the simple average. However, when considering how prices have changed since the beginning of our study, it is clear that prices are higher since Week 1, having risen an average of 2.9% since October 13th.

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    What were the survey’s findings when broken down by retailer?

    • AMZN had listings for 36 of the 38 products surveyed and had prices that were 0.1% lower than the simple average, and 0.7% higher with the price-weighted average. Of the 36 AMZN products surveyed, 29 were sold first-party by AMZN, while the other 7 were sold by third parties on AMZN’s website. Compared to prices as of October 27th, AMZN’s prices were 3.6% lower on simple average as of November 10th.

    • WMT had listings for 28 of the 38 products surveyed and had prices that were 1.4% higher with the simple average, and 1.1% higher than the price-weighted average. Compared to prices as of October 27th, WMT’s prices were 2.4% lower on simple average as of November 10th.

    • TGT had listings for 31 of the 38 products surveyed and had prices that were 1.2% higher than the simple average, and 2.1% higher than the price-weighted average. Compared to prices as of October 27th, TGT’s prices were 4.4% lower on simple average as of November 10th.

    • BBY had listings for 34 of the 38 products surveyed and had prices that were 2.1% lower than the simple average, and 0.8% lower than the price-weighted average. Compared to prices as of October 27th, BBY’s prices were 4.5% lower on simple average as of November 10th.

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    How about some other product categories like toys?

    The Goldman survey of prices included 57 toy SKUs across AMZN, WMT, and TGT. In terms of simple average prices, the toy basket was flat on November 10th as compared to October 27th. When considering how prices have changed since the beginning of our study, it is clear that prices have increased across the board since Week 1, having risen an average of 6.9% since October 13th as of November 10th. This increase is primarily driven by the subsiding of discounts from Target’s Deal Days, Walmart’s Big Save, and Amazon’s Prime Days since Week 1. As we get closer to Thanksgiving / Black Friday, discounts will intensify once again. Out of stocks were also a factor this week. Of their 52 products listed, Walmart had 4, while Amazon had 2. Target had 8 of its 46 listed products out of stock.

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    And details by retailer:

    • AMZN had listings for 52 of the 57 products surveyed and had prices that were 1.1% lower than the simple average, and 0.8% higher than the price-weighted average. Of the 52 AMZN products surveyed, 39 were sold first-party by AMZN, while the other 13 were sold by third parties on AMZN’s website. Compared to prices as of October 27th, AMZN’s prices were 1.1% lower on simple average as of November 10th.

    • WMT had listings for 52 of the 57 products surveyed and had prices that were 1.5% higher than the simple average, and 1.2% higher than the price-weighted average. Of the 52 WMT products surveyed, 39 were sold first-party by WMT, while the other 13 were sold by third parties on WMT’s website. Compared to prices as of October 27th, WMT’s prices were 2.0% higher on simple average as of November 10th.

    • TGT had listings for 46 of the 57 products surveyed and had prices that were 0.4% lower than the simple average, and 1.5% higher than the price-weighted average. Compared to prices as of October 27th, TGT’s prices were 0.8% lower on simple average as of November 10th.

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    Next, we take a look at Kitchenware/Home products. The Goldman survey of prices included 15 Kitchen and Home SKUs across AMZN, WMT, TGT, M, KSS, BBBY, and WSM. Overall, the Kitchen and Home category was slightly more promotional as of November 10th compared to October 27th, as prices were 1.8% lower than the simple average. When considering how prices have changed since the beginning of our study, it is clear that prices have increased slightly since Week 1, having risen an average of 5.1% since October 13th as of November 10th. In this particular basket, out of stocks were not overly significant, as 2 of WMT’s 9, and 1 of AMZN’s 10 listed products were out of stock.

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    Data by retailer:

    • AMZN had listings for 10 of the 15 products surveyed and had prices that were 2.8% lower than the simple average, and 4.6% lower than the price-weighted average. Of the 10 AMZN products surveyed, 7 were sold first-party by AMZN, while 3 were sold by third parties on AMZN’s website. Compared to prices as of October 27th, AMZN’s prices were 3.1% higher on simple average as of November 10th.

    • WMT had listings for 9 of the 15 products surveyed and had prices that were 5.2% higher than the simple average, and 11.1% higher than the price-weighted average. Of the 9 WMT products surveyed, 2 were sold first-party by WMT, while 7 were sold by third parties on WMT’s website. Compared to prices as of October 27th, WMT’s prices were 0.4% lower on simple average as of November 10th.

    • TGT had listings for 6 of the 15 products surveyed and had prices that were 8.3% lower than the simple average, and 0.4% higher than the price-weighted average. Compared to prices as of October 27th, TGT’s prices were 1.9% lower on simple average as of November 10th.

    • M had listings for 6 of the 15 products surveyed and had prices that were 13.0% higher than the simple average, and 16.8% higher than the price-weighted average. It is notable that 3 Macy’s products listed on October 27th were no longer listed by M as of November 10th, which likely influenced the results of its price comparisons. Compared to prices as of October 27th, M’s prices were 4.2% higher on simple average as of November 10th.

    • KSS had listings for 11 of the 15 products surveyed and had prices that were 4.8% higher than the simple average, and 5.3% higher than the price-weighted average. Compared to prices as of October 27th, KSS’s prices were 13.8% lower on simple average as of November 10th. This price decline is likely driven by KSS having sale prices listed for 9 of their 11 items.

    • BBBY had listings for 10 of the 15 products surveyed and had prices that were 7.2% lower than the simple average, and 5.7% lower than the price-weighted average. Compared to prices as of October 27th, BBBY’s prices were 3.5% lower on simple average as of November 10th.

    • WSM had listings for 6 of the 15 products surveyed and had prices that were 4.7% lower than the simple average, and 3.1% lower compared to the price-weighted average. Compared to prices as of October 27th, WSM’s prices were flat on simple average as of November 10th.

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    There are several other categories in the full Goldman survey but a bigger picture emerges: while there is some fluctuation, Amazon continues to be the dominant price leader in online shopping, which means that its biggest competitors WalMart, Target and others will have their work cut out for them if they wish to compete on price as any further discounts from here will leave virtually nothing for profits.

    Finally, some thoughts on shipping

    As Goldman writes, in retail, several companies have pointed to concerns around higher transportation costs driven by (1) meaningfully higher surcharge rates, (2) higher per-package shipment costs, and (3) a material increase in digital penetration. While the shipping cost issue will be more pronounced during the holidays as the freight market remains capacity constrained, there is also room for freight to remain a headwind into 2021 and beyond as the annual contracts, which have insulated retailers to-date, are likely to renew at an elevated level.

    In the past few years, several retailers have offered holiday-special shipping policies. In Week 2 of the pricing study, Goldman began to see shipping related activity pick up, as COST, Staples, West Elm, and WSM all began shipping promotions. During the week of November 8th, we saw several of these promotions continue and several new ones spring up, including Ulta’s offer of free shipping with no minimum threshold and Macy’s $5 discount on same-day delivery.

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  • One Third Of Biden's Pentagon Transition Team Funded By Weapons Industry
    One Third Of Biden’s Pentagon Transition Team Funded By Weapons Industry

    Tyler Durden

    Fri, 11/13/2020 – 19:40

    Authored by Dave DeCamp via AntiWar.com,

    Earlier this week Joe Biden released a list of transition teams for the various departments in his future White House. The Pentagon transition team for Biden consists of 23 people, many of whom hail from hawkish think tanks.

    The team is led by Kathleen Hicks, who worked in the Pentagon under the Obama administration. Hicks most recent employer is the Cen­ter for Strate­gic and Inter­na­tion­al Stud­ies (CSIS), a think tank that receives contributions from arms makers like Northrop Grumman, Boeing, Lockheed Martin, and Raytheon, to name a few.

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    CSIS also receives contributions from governments. The think tank’s top government donors are the US, the UAE, Taiwan, and Japan. Two other CSIS employees are on the transition team; Andrew Hunter and Melissa Dalton, who both worked in the Pentagon under the Obama administration.

    CSIS employees author policy papers and Op-Eds that generally call for more US involvement around the world. In August, Hicks co-authored an Op-Ed in The Hill titled, “Pentagon Action to Withdraw from Germany Benefits Our Adversaries,” a piece that slammed Trump’s plan to draw down troops from Germany, which Biden could to call off.

    Two members of the transition team come from the Center for a New American Security (CNAS), Susanna Blume, a former Pentagon employee, and Ely Ratner, who served as deputy national security advisor to then-vice president Joe Biden from 2015 to 2017.

    CNAS is another think tank that enjoys hefty donations from weapons makers, major corporations, and governments. From 2019 to 2020, CNAS received at least $500,000 from the US State Department and at least $500,000 from Northrop Grumman. Other donors include Google, Facebook, Raytheon, and Lockheed Martin.

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    Three more team members list their latest employer as the RAND Corporation, Stacie Pettyjohn, a wargaming expert, Christine Wormuth, who held a few roles in the Obama administration, and Terri Tanielian, a behavioral scientist.

    RAND is another hawkish think tank that receives the bulk of its funding from the US government, including the US Army, Air Force, and Department of Homeland Security. RAND is also funded by the UAE, Qatar, and NATO.

    A report from In These Times found at least eight out of the 23 team members come from organizations that receive funding from US weapons makers (not including RAND). Besides the CSIS and CNAS employees listed above, In These Times includes Sharon Burke, who works for New America, Shawn Skel­ly, from CACI International, and Vic­tor Gar­cia, from Rebellion Defense.

  • "Lockdowns For Thee, But Not For Me" – Newsom, Pelosi Attend Dinner Parties While US COVID Cases Explode
    “Lockdowns For Thee, But Not For Me” – Newsom, Pelosi Attend Dinner Parties While US COVID Cases Explode

    Tyler Durden

    Fri, 11/13/2020 – 19:20

    As Joe Biden’s camp continues to try and walk back talk of another national lockdown, Democratic leaders are once again exhibiting via their behavior that social distancing restrictions and lockdown rules are “for thee and not for me.” In an incident that may remind readers of Nancy Pelosi’s quarantine-time visit to a San Francisco Hair Salon, California Gov Gavin Newsom has been busted attending a swanky party at one of California’s top restaurants.

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    According to the SF Chronicle, Newsom attended a birthday party for one of his top advisors at the French Laundry, the Michelin-starred restaurant run by Thomas Keller The paper noted that the party included members of “several households”, in violation of the recommendations delivered by Newsom’s administration, which has urged Californians to retreat to their personal bubbles and only leave for “essential” purposes. Current state regulations limit any type of social gathering to members of no more than three households, tops.

    The dinner the night of Nov. 6 at the famed French Laundry in Yountville in Napa County brought together at least 12 people to celebrate the 50th birthday of Jason Kinney, a longtime friend and political adviser to Newsom who is also a partner at the lobbying firm Axiom Advisors. In addition to the governor, his wife, Jennifer Siebel Newsom, was in attendance. State guidelines limit gatherings, defined as “social situations that bring together people from different households at the same time in a single space or place,” to no more than three households. Representatives for Kinney and Newsom declined to specify how many households the diners represented, but did not dispute that it was more than three.

    […]

    Click said the birthday dinner for Kinney was permitted because state guidelines require only that restaurants “limit the number of patrons at a single table to a household unit or patrons who have asked to be seated together.” A spokesperson for the public health department was unable to answer questions about whether the state considers it acceptable for residents from an unlimited number of households to mix if the gathering is at a restaurant.

    At a news conference Friday, state Health and Human Services Secretary Mark Ghaly reiterated that activities where it is difficult to wear a mask the entire time, such as dining, and mixing with people from other households are higher-risk situations during the pandemic. “As we look at surging cases, we have the guidance and the tips for a reason,” he said. “We believe they are the strategies to keep ourselves and our communities safe, and we hope and expect people to take them seriously.”

    When first approached by the Chronicle, Newsom’s camp tried to deny that the gathering violated the state’s guidelines. But after the story was published, Newsom released a comment saying attending the party was “an error in judgment” (just in case you thought President Trump and his team were the only ones who lie to or mislead journalists).

    The California Department of Public Health issued guidelines on Oct. 9 allowing small private gatherings for the first time during the pandemic. Under the guidelines, gatherings that include more than three households are prohibited.

    The state also requires that gatherings be held outside, where experts believe virus transmission is far less likely.

    Amusingly, Newsom wasn’t the only California politician to attend a social gathering this week while governors around the country are imposing new restrictions and even moving to move schools back to remote-only.

    Nancy Pelosi held a dinner for incoming Democratic members of Congress. She told reporters that the venue was “very spaced” with enhanced ventilation.

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    Newsom also joined with the governors of Washington State and Oregon to urge Californians not to leave the state unless it’s absolutely necessary, until things get under control.

    Maybe now he’s overcompensating?

  • Trump Must Out The Deep State
    Trump Must Out The Deep State

    Tyler Durden

    Fri, 11/13/2020 – 19:00

    Authored by Steve Brown via The Ron Paul Institute for Peace & Prosperity,

    Whether the US 2020 election was truly stolen or not we will likely never know. The president himself doesn’t know since he failed to purge the palace that embarked on the palace coup that has seemingly toppled him.

    Booting Mark ‘Raytheon’ Esper after the fact simply highlights this fact.

    Now, Mr. Trump will have to put on his thinking cap and grasp the Machiavellian reality of the perverse Washington cesspool he has presided over for nearly four years – and come up with a plan.

    Trump can use his deal-making skills to court the Evil Empire’s titular head, but what sort of deal would that be? And if Mr. Trump truly is the visionary and rogue his base believes he is, then he could disembowel the Deep State with an adroit stroke or two instead. However, with Jared Kushner as his top advisor, that’s unlikely.

    But if he chose to, how could Mr. Trump out Washington’s Axis of Evil while avenging himself on the Beltway’s swamp creatures?

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    Well, one major hurdle for Washington’s corrupt coup class is the upcoming government shutdown. The central government runs out of Federal Reserve just-above bog roll – ie funding again — on December 11th. The president must reliably engage Mitch McConnell in withholding any new funding agreement, and since McConnell’s position is secure there is little motivation for him to provide favors now, especially when Trump is supremely vulnerable.

    During the pandemic a Trump government shutdown would certainly generate massive public and major media outrage. Likewise, Mr. Trump has been most interested in keeping his promises to the people, so a government shutdown is unlikely to be in the cards.

    Another option, Trump could issue executive orders to end the endless US-initiated conflicts in Afghanistan, Syria, and Iraq. In such a scenario, Congress would have to scramble to keep its wars going. However the new Zombie-head, major media, and US congress would certainly howl to the moon all the while. Even so, Trump could leave office with some satisfaction, knowing that he did what he promised to do, regardless of opposition from the warfare state cancer infesting the Beltway.

    The United States funds about 70 percent of NATO’s Cold War dinosaur existence too, with member states contributing the rest. Trump jousted with Esper over NATO, their most significant point of difference. Now the president can defund NATO with an emergency executive order – perhaps on a government shutdown basis? – at a stroke. Like ending America’s endless wars, the new Zombie leader (Biden) major media, and US congress would howl to the moon all the while… and ditto on Trump’s satisfaction.

    Now think of all the secrets Trump knows on so many issues, from Huntergate to Russiagate. Trump knows who setup George Papadopoulos and why. He knows about the Steele Dossier. Trump knows the Deep State’s secrets and where the dirty laundry is hidden. If Trump truly were a visionary – as well as a rogue (not to mention patriot) – he could easily out the dirty laundry in one go. But that may be too much, creating risk for himself and his family. A more practical idea would be to covertly get the information out for “plausible denial” release later. All that’s left would be to admit nothing, deny everything, and make counter-accusations.

    In such interesting times, Mr. Trump has other options – even seemingly frivolous ones. He could out the facts on Hillary’s emails and the related alleged FBI cover-up; or undermine any deal the Zombie’s regime intends to make with Ghislaine Maxwell in order to protect powerful interests. Trump could even release all the documents, unredacted, on the John F Kennedy assassination, showing that elements within Langley’s unconstitutional Criminal Intelligence Agency were involved and that the assassination was not just the work of a “lone nut” who got lucky.

    In brief, Trump’s options re outing the Deep State are virtually limitless. Washington’s detritus and the grifters who infest the Beltway’s infernal swamp – like Biden – are of course aware of that, too. So there is a good chance some sort of deal will be cut for Trump’s graceful exit, especially if rumors are true that Trump will run again in 2024.

    If not… then watch out below!   

  • Daily Briefing – November 13, 2020
    Daily Briefing – November 13, 2020


    Tyler Durden

    Fri, 11/13/2020 – 18:55

    Real Vision CEO, Raoul Pal, and senior editor, Ash Bennington, discuss the growing shutdown measures in the U.S. even as the S&P 500 makes all-time highs. Looking at declining mobility data, Pal explores how the prospect of a full lockdown in the U.S will depress economic activity as well as perhaps markets. He and Ash then discuss default risk and the stock sales of Pfizer’s CEO before zooming out into macro issues such as how stagnant money velocity affects retirees and how rise in the monetary base could buoy precious metals and bitcoin. In the intro, Jack Farley reviews price action, evaluates the distress of cruise liners, and the looming expiration of the Fed’s emergency lending programs.

  • Militia Leader Tells Alex Jones He Has "Armed" Men Stationed Around DC Metro 
    Militia Leader Tells Alex Jones He Has “Armed” Men Stationed Around DC Metro 

    Tyler Durden

    Fri, 11/13/2020 – 18:40

    Earlier this week, Oath Keepers militia leader Stewart Rhodes told Infowar’s Alex Jones and Owen Shroyer that his members are “armed” and positioned around the Washington Metropolitan Area to prevent a steal of the 2020 presidential election from President Trump. 

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    Alex Jones (left); Owen Shroyer (top right); Stewart Rhodes (bottom right)

    Oath Keepers claims to have thousands of members of former law enforcement officials and military veterans as members. While the militia claims to be defending the Constitution, it has also shifted over the years from opposing the government to instead supporting Trump. 

    Rhodes insisted that Trump must declassify information about members of the “deep state” if he wants to prevent the election from being stolen. He said the American people have a right to “know exactly who the pedophiles are.” From judges to politicians to academia to media, Rhodes continued to stay these people are all part of the deep state.

    Donald Trump Jr. tweeted Sunday: “DECLASSIFY EVERYTHING!!! We can’t let the bad actors get away with it.” 

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    Rhodes said Trump should task special forces officers to secure information about the deep state because the president “cannot trust the normal military intelligence services.” In previous statements, Rhodes has been opposed to military intervention in domestic matters, but in this case, he said Trump should invoke the Insurrection Act. 

    In support of the president, he also said, “we have men already stationed outside D.C. as a nuclear option in case they attempt to remove the president illegally, we will step in and stop it.” 

    Rhodes then said: These men are “armed” and “prepared to go in if the president calls us up.” 

    He said Oath Keepers would be inside the metro area to support Saturday’s planned pro-Trump demonstrations. 

    Here’s the interview (via Media Matters): 

Digest powered by RSS Digest

Nov 13

Today’s News 13th November 2020

  • Austria To Ban "Political Islam" After Terror Attack
    Austria To Ban “Political Islam” After Terror Attack

    Tyler Durden

    Fri, 11/13/2020 – 02:00

    Authored by Paul Joseph Watson via Summit News,

    In response to a jihadist terror attack in Vienna last week, the government of Austria will pass a law making it illegal to spread “political Islam” in the country.

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    The European nation’s capital was shook when a lone gunman killed four people and injured 23 others during a rampage that began in the city’s historic quarter. The culprit, 20-year-old Kujtim Fejzullai, was an ISIS sympathizer.

    In response, Austrian Chancellor Sebastian Kurz announced new measures that would make preaching “political Islam” a criminal offense.

    “We will create a criminal offence called ‘political Islam’ in order to be able to take action against those who are not terrorists themselves, but who create the breeding ground for them,” Kurz tweeted.

    “There will be further possibilities for the closure of the places of worship, the introduction of a register of imams, and measures will be taken to drain financial flows for terrorist financing.”

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    Another measure set to be voted on by Parliament next month would see individuals convicted of terror offences kept behind bars for life.

    As we previously highlighted, despite facing a worst threat than Austria, the French government hasn’t taken similar measures.

    However, President Macron has faced global protests from the Muslim world simply for re-affirming the pre-eminence of free speech and suggesting tighter border controls.

    *  *  *

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  • Robert Bridge: How The Democrats Weaponized A Pandemic To Beat Donald Trump
    Robert Bridge: How The Democrats Weaponized A Pandemic To Beat Donald Trump

    Tyler Durden

    Thu, 11/12/2020 – 23:40

    Authored by Robert Bridge via The Strategic Culture Foundation,

    The one question that continues to haunt political observers is ‘How was Joe Biden, 77, able to get away with such a low-energy, low-carb campaign, in what has been described as the most consequential election in U.S. history?’ Let’s be so bold as to peek into the brain of this political genius who was somehow able to upset the 5D chess grandmaster of our times, Donald J. Trump.

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    As the Republican incumbent was flying non-stop to multiple rallies around the country in the days leading up to Nov. 3, Biden preferred to remain hunkered down in his basement, leaving for the occasional ice cream cone, or photo-op at some airfield where he waved to imaginary crowds on a deserted runway. Judging by such lackadaisical behavior, it almost seemed that Biden knew he had nothing to worry about. And perhaps he didn’t.

    Trust the pandemic

    The one notable factor that has distinguished the 2020 election season from those in the past was the outbreak of coronavirus in January of this year. Now that’s not to suggest, of course, that Biden was such an evil genius that he placed an order for a biblical scourge to visit America precisely when it did. After all, only a sociopath or maybe a billionaire software developer with no medical degree would ever fantasize about the outbreak of a plague. Yet it remains doubtful that some individuals, particularly craven campaign managers and surgical mask salesmen, failed to see the short-term advantage of Covid-19 reaching America’s shores when it did. To quote the modern Machiavellian Democrat, Rahm Emanuel, one must “never let a good crisis go to waste.” And it must be said that the Democrats have played this pandemic for everything it’s worth.

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    Lock it down

    When the coronavirus began tearing through the Heartland, Democrats, as well as Republicans, began to introduce tough measures lest a single person get infected by said virus. Few political leaders, after all, wanted to stand accused of ‘killing grandma.’ But whereas the Republican states began to ease up on their restrictions over time, giving their people some breathing room, the Democrats double-downed on the lockdowns. Keeping their economies in a straitjacket, they allowed thousands of businesses to die a slow, agonizing death, while banning or severely curtailing any and all social activities, including weddings, funerals, school attendance and church services. With breathtaking cynicism, however, exceptions were made for Black Lives Matter ‘peaceful protests,’ which had a vivious tendency for applying the final coup de grace on those very businesses that were languishing.

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    Here is the Wall Street Journal describing the slaughter:

    “Nearly two-thirds of leisure and hospitality jobs in New York and New Jersey and about half in California and Illinois disappeared between February and April compared to 43% in Florida, which was among the last states to lock down and first to reopen. Florida [Republican] Gov. Ron DeSantis also provided exemptions for lower-risk businesses including contractors, manufacturers and some retailers. Four percent of construction workers in Florida lost their jobs compared to 41% in New York, 27% in New Jersey, 17% in California and 11% in Illinois.”

    Meanwhile, New York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, and Michigan – major Democratic strongholds – inexplicably required nursing homes to admit seniors who had acquired COVID-19.

    On March 25, 2020, the state of New York ordered:

    “No resident shall be denied re-admission or admission to [a nursing home] solely based on a confirmed or suspected diagnosis of COVID-19.”

    That was a very strange decision especially when there was no shortage of hospital beds – even at the peak of Covid cases. That much became clear in March when Trump dispatched the naval hospital ship USNS Comfort to New York City as part of the government’s response to the ongoing pandemic. Instead of sending the sick and elderly into nursing homes, New York Governor Cuomo now had the option to let these people recover aboard the vessel, where they would not have subjected hundreds of vulnerable residents to the disease. Instead, Cuomo told Trump in April that the medical ship was no longer needed.

    So who got the heat when the U.S. death rates from Covid began to climb, predominantly from deaths among the elderly? Not Governors Cuomo, Murphy, Whitmer and Wolf, that’s for sure.

    Aside from their murderous consequences, the measures put forward by the Democratic states had, and continue to have, the ‘negative’ effect of destroying much of the economic gains made during the four-year reign of the odious ‘Orange man’, thus seriously hindering his chances of reelection.

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    No failing with the mail-in?

    But by far the greatest gift that Covid could have given to the Democratic Party was the excuse to begin mail-in voting, and just in time for the Trump-Biden clash. Here is where the Biden campaign found it indispensable to have the mainstream media and Big Tech firmly in its corner. The major social media platforms, Twitter and Facebook, assumed the responsibility (which was not, it is important to emphasize, given to them under Section 230 of the Communications Act) of flagging any person, including the President of the United States, who dared to suggest that mail-in voting was loaded with a number of pitfalls and trap doors. Even the White House has provided a list of examples.

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    Was it just a coincidence that the exact scenario that Trump had been warning would happen – reported mass examples of fraud connected to mail-in ballots – eventually came to light? On election night, Trump was enjoying a comfortable lead in the critical swing states of Georgia, North Carolina, Michigan, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin. Then, something that has never happened before in an American election happened: those states suddenly stopped counting their votes, saying they would continue the process the next day. So what happened in the interim? Nothing good, it appears. First, there have been multiple reports of votes being delivered to counting stations throughout the night.

    In one particular case, Connie Johnson, a poll watcher from Detroit, Michigan, provided her personal account over Facebook as to how she discovered that over 130,000 ballots had reportedly arrived at the city’s ballot-counting facility at 4 a.m. in the morning. According to Johnson, every single one of those ballots was cast for Joe Biden, which would seem to be a mathematical impossibility. Moreover, Republican poll watchers were denied access to the count because, as they were told, the permitted “capacity” inside of the hall been reached. Once again, Covid was to blame.

    Across the country, in Philadelphia, Trump’s personal lawyer Rudy Guliani held a press conference where several poll watchers revealed how they were not permitted to observe the mail-in ballots that had arrived. According to Giuliani, a similar scenario played out in all of the swing states.

    Behind these possible shenanigans, it goes without saying that Joe Biden would require the full support of the mainstream media and Big Tech to pull of the greatest election heist of the century.

    Naturally, he got it, as the media not only refused to consider the possibility that the nationwide mail-in ballot scheme could result in making the United States resemble some Banana Republic, it quickly announced him president even before everything had been declared official.

    Someday in the future, assuming Biden is lifted into the Oval Office, I suspect we will hear the same tired public confessionals from media hacks as they ask themselves on air and in print – much as they did in the disastrous aftermath of the Iraq war – how they could have failed to ask more questions not only about Biden’s questionable mental state, but about the use of mail-in ballots in the most consequential U.S. presidential election of all time.

  • Pope Francis Urges Catholics To Pray For 'Ethical Robots'
    Pope Francis Urges Catholics To Pray For ‘Ethical Robots’

    Tyler Durden

    Thu, 11/12/2020 – 23:20

    In November’s monthly prayer intention, Pope Francis called on all the good Catholics of the world to “pray that the progress of robotics and artificial intelligence may always serve humankind.”

    The pope’s monthly prayer intentions, published on the US Conference of Catholic Bishops’ website, was also featured in a short video clip on YouTube via Vatican News. 

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    In his message, the pope said artificial intelligence was “at the heart of the epochal change we are experiencing,” and that robotics could empower the world if harnessed for good. He said, “if technological progress increases inequalities, it is not true progress. Future advances should be orientated towards respecting the dignity of the person.”

    The pope’s prayer for ethical robots was first reported by The Verge, which comes as the Vatican, earlier this year, released “Rome Call for AI Ethics,” a conference that, according to Reuters, discussed “principles promoting the ethical use of artificial intelligence.”

    With the virus pandemic catapulting the world deeper into the fourth industrial revolution, dubbed Industry 4.0 – the ongoing automation of traditional manufacturing and industrial practices, with artificial intelligence and robotics, under cover of “social distancing” has caused an unwelcoming employment crisis for the working poor, with many of their jobs displaced by robots (read: here & here). 

    The pope will likely be highly critical of the automation wave, crushing the world’s working poor; as he recently warned in the latest encyclical, Fratelli Tutti (All Brothers), unfettered capitalism is unstoppable. 

  • Florida "Anti-Mob" Bill Gives Civilians Immunity If They Shoot Looters Or Run Over Protesters
    Florida “Anti-Mob” Bill Gives Civilians Immunity If They Shoot Looters Or Run Over Protesters

    Tyler Durden

    Thu, 11/12/2020 – 23:00

    Authored by John Vibes via TheMindUnleashed.com,

    This week, Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis announced the drafting of a new piece of legislation that would expand the state’s Stand Your Ground law. He is calling the legislation an “anti-mob” bill and it seems specifically targeted at the Black lives Matter movement and the ongoing protests against police brutality that have swept across the United States in recent months.

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    The new legislation, if it becomes law, would allow armed citizens in the state of Florida to shoot, and potentially kill anyone that they suspect of looting a home or business.

    According to the Miami Herald, the legislation is an attempt to prevent “violent and disorderly assemblies” by allowing civilians to use violence against anyone involved in the “interruption or impairment” of a business. The law specified that any burglary within 500 feet of “violent or disorderly assembly,” could be legally answered with lethal force.

    The proposed legislation has been criticized by legal experts in the state, who fear that it could give vigilantes a license to kill anyone who they deem to be a rioter, and could further increase the change of civil unrest.

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    Former Miami-Dade County prosecutor, Denise Georges, who has experience with Stand Your Ground cases in the state, told the Herald that,

    “It allows for vigilantes to justify their actions. It also allows for death to be the punishment for a property crime — and that is cruel and unusual punishment. We cannot live in a lawless society where taking a life is done so casually and recklessly.”

    The legislation also includes other measures that would give immunity to citizens who hurt or injure protesters who are blocking the road. The bill would make it a third-degree felony to block traffic and give immunity to drivers who kill or injure protesters that were blocking the road.

    There is also language in the bill that attempts to block local jurisdictions from defunding police departments, by cutting their entire budget if they decide to scale back police funding.

    Miami Beach Mayor Dan Gelber, a former prosecutor, and critic of the already existing Stand Your Ground law, said that DeSantis is attempting to earn favor with the Trump administration.

    “It’s clear that the Trump beauty pageant is still going on with governors and senators, who all want to be the next Trump. And the governor is clearly a very good contestant,” Gelber said.

    The proposed law remains in draft form and could not be considered until the 2021 legislative session at the earliest.

    DeSantis has been working to impose measures to crack down on protesters all year, and has promoted similar ideas in recent months, including immunity for drivers who run over protesters. Legal experts are concerned that this sends the wrong message to counter-protest groups who already perceive themselves to be vigilantes.

    This year has seen numerous cases of vigilante violence, and in many of these cases, the suspect ended up walking free because of the laws already on the books.

  • Nine Million Jobs At Risk Amid US Travel And Tourism Bust 
    Nine Million Jobs At Risk Amid US Travel And Tourism Bust 

    Tyler Durden

    Thu, 11/12/2020 – 22:40

    No other US industry has been more severely impacted by the virus pandemic than travel and tourism.

    The World Travel & Tourism Council (WTTC) published a report this week, protecting a “staggering 9.2 million jobs could be lost in the US Travel & Tourism sector in 2020 if barriers to global travel remain in place.” 

    WTTC’s economic modeling is the latest reminder of the deep economic scarring that could be materializing due to the virus pandemic that continues to batter the economy. 

    According to the report, 7.2 million jobs in the US have already been impacted. If restrictions on international travel aren’t lifted, and further stimulus isn’t seen, 9.2 million jobs, more than half of all jobs in the sector, could be lost.

    WTTC’s 2019 Economic Impact Report details how travel and tourism accounted for at least $1.84 trillion to the US economy and was responsible for 10.7% of all US jobs. 

    WTTC’s research outlines between 10.8 million and 13.8 million jobs within travel and tourism remain at serious risk.

    While the resumption of international travel would boost travel and tourism – at the moment, that appears not to be the case as increased social distancing restrictions are being reimposed in Europe and the US. 

    In a separate report, Goldman’s economic team uses real-time data to determine the US economy is rolling over due to the resurgence of the virus pandemic. 

    Goldman said real-time data from OpenTable through early November “show a significantly larger decline in indoor dining activity in states with higher case growth, suggesting that virus-sensitive industries could be showing early signs of a growing virus hit.”

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    According to Goldman, while indoor dining may represent only a small share of overall consumer spending, it is a particularly useful indicator because its high virus-sensitivity means it will likely be one of the first sectors to show an impact from the virus. In other words, “OpenTable data could thus provide an early indication of growing risks to broader categories of services spending, especially given its timeliness.”

    Since restaurants are major contributors to travel and tourism, their slumping activity could be a good proxy of a waning recovery in travel and tourism, nevertheless, a double-dip recession could be ahead. 

  • Michigan State Senators Request Full Election Audit Citing Voting Irregularities
    Michigan State Senators Request Full Election Audit Citing Voting Irregularities

    Tyler Durden

    Thu, 11/12/2020 – 22:20

    Authored by Jack Phillips via The Epoch Times,

    At least two Michigan Republican state senators have requested a full election audit, asking the Michigan secretary of state’s office for a full recount before the election results are certified, according to a letter they sent to her office on Thursday.

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    State senators Lana Theis and Tom Barrett wrote that Michigan Secretary of State Jocelyn Benson and canvassers that are reviewing allegations of irregularities and voter fraud made in lawsuits filed by President Donald Trump’s campaign. They are requesting a “full audit” of the election, saying it needs to be done before the state certifies the election results.

    “Every citizen deserves to have faith in the integrity of the election process and its outcome,” they said in letters.

    “It is our responsibility, as elected public servants, to assure the people of Michigan of the process’s integrity through complete transparency and the faithful investigation of any allegations of wrongdoing, fraud, or abuse.”

    Their letters made reference to allegations made by Trump’s legal team, claims of witnesses about irregularities at polls, and a glitch that switched 6,000 votes from a Republican official to a Democratic official in Antrim County that was later corrected and acknowledged by the secretary of state’s office, although the Michigan GOP said the same software – Dominion Voting Systems – was used in dozens of other counties.

    “The erroneous reporting of unofficial results from Antrim county was a result of accidental error on the part of the Antrim County Clerk. The equipment and software did not malfunction and all ballots were properly tabulated. However, the clerk accidentally did not update the software used to collect voting machine data and report unofficial results,” Benson said in a statement last week about Antrim County’s election results.

    Other allegations from the two lawmakers include ineligible ballots being counted, poll workers being told to backdate ballots, counting the same ballots several times, and other claims.

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    Trump on Thursday accused Dominion of deleting 2.7 million votes for him across the United States and cited a One America News report. Twitter flagged Trump’s claim, saying, “This claim about election fraud is disputed.” Other lawmakers have raised serious concerns about the software, although Dominion has denied such claims.

    “Dominion Voting Systems categorically denies any claims about any vote switching or alleged software issues with our voting systems,” a Dominion spokesperson said in a statement to The Denver Post.

    “Our systems continue to reliably and accurately count ballots, and state and local election authorities have publicly confirmed the integrity of the process.”

    Theis and Barrett said there are allegations about unsecured ballots arriving at the TCF Center in Detroit without a chain of custody and without any envelopes, saying it included a batch of about 40,000 ballots that came early on Nov. 4, the day after Election Day. They also said there have been reports of “illegal and official intimidation and interference” with election observers and poll watchers, including harassment of challengers, unequal treatment of challengers, refusal to record the challengers’ claims, and removal of challengers “if they politely voiced a challenge.”

    They said that more than 100 Michiganders, in sworn statements, have made the claims about interference at the polls.

    “These claims deserve our full attention and diligent investigation to ensure fairness and transparency in our election process,” said the two lawmakers.

    Michigan’s secretary of state’s office hasn’t yet responded to a request for comment about the two lawmakers’ letter.

  • Is This The End For Hedge Funds: Retail Investors Outperform "Smart Money" Ten-To-One
    Is This The End For Hedge Funds: Retail Investors Outperform “Smart Money” Ten-To-One

    Tyler Durden

    Thu, 11/12/2020 – 22:00

    After a dismal decade for hedge funds, 2020 was the year that may have sealed the fate of the (former) masters of the universe who once upon a time collected 2 and 20 to hedge against crashes and to outperform the market but now merely collect tens of million in fees to come up creative excuses for sucking.

    Case in point: at the start of the year, the so-called “smart money” was massively long the same handful of stocks, only to watch mortified as their portfolios exploded in March with hedge funds forgetting to actually “hedge”, and getting swept away with the market carnage. Then just as everyone flipped short in late March, the Fed launched the most batshit insane rescue of capital markets, which included injecting trillions in liquidity every single day and even buying junk bonds. Needless the say, the market ripped just as the hedge fund crew was short, leading to even more losses. Then around September, when hedge funds were doing what they do best – all jumping into the same handful of stocks – the rug was pulled from under them as the Nasdaq tumbled, quickly accumulating even more losses, and then, just two months later, the last nail in the coffin was hammered when momentum stocks – a perennial darling of those who supposedly collect millions to conduct in depth and extensive fundamental analysis but merely copycat each other’s trades – suffered a 15 sigma crash, obliterating what little alpha hedge funds had generated in 2020.

    Unfortunately it wasn’t much, because after all that, with the S&P managing to eek out a modest 10% return this year as the Fed threw everything at the market in hopes of propping it up and pushing it higher, the HFR hedge fund index is just barely above 0.

    Yet not everyone is sucking this year. The winners? Those who clearly got to benefit from a market that long ago stopped making any sense thanks to the Fed flipping fundamentals on their head, and actively buying risk assets and who knows what else in the open market.

    Yes, we are talking about retail investors who are having the time of their life: as shown in the chart below, while the S&P is up 10%, and the average hedge fund is barely in the green, a basket of 50 most popular stocks held by the retail investing community is up a whopping 55% YTD.  This means that retail investors – some as young as 16 years old on Robinhood – are outperforming the best paid investors in the world ten to one!

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    And while retail investors may be delirious with their market profits this year, for hedge funds – especially those who are struggling to catch up to the S&P500 or worse, to turn green for the year – the drumbeat of death has never beat louder.

    Why? Because in a year when volatility averaged well over 20, an amazing environment for professional traders, coupled with record wide dispersion between growth and value returns, hedge funds should be printing making money. Clearly, however, they are not and as Bloomberg reports, what few hedge fund clients remain are losing patience.

    “This year separates the adults from the children,” said Tim Ng, chief investment officer of Clearbrook Global Advisors, which invests in hedge funds. “If you are a fundamentally driven, bottoms-up securities manager across any asset class, this should have been the year when you did well. Everything you’ve wanted for years exists.”

    To be sure, there are the occasional winners, such as mega macro fund Brevan Howard Asset Management, tech-focused Coatue Management, and Boaz Weinstein’s remarkable Saba Capital. But it is the losers such as Ray Dalio – who these days spends more time spewing trivial bullshit on twitter than investing – whose Bridgewater flagship fund fell 19% through Nov. 5, that are forcing investors to ask: If they couldn’t make money before and still can’t now, why keep them?

    “It’s getting harder to have conviction in hedge funds,” said Adam Taback, chief investment officer of Wells Fargo Private Wealth Management, another allocator. “Many have not protected enough on the downside and others haven’t provided enough upside.”

    In short instead of hedging, “hedge funds” are doing precisely the opposite: they are losing money when stocks drop and barely making it when stocks surge. Then again, antihedge funds does not have quite that “fast-track to riches” sound to it, so we doubt it will be adopted.

    “It’s survival of the fittest -a culling of the herd,” Ng said of the industry that counts more than 8,000 funds, and is about to be hit with a historic volley of redemption requests ahead of the new year.

    Neil Datta, who runs the $10 billion multifamily office Forbes Family Trust, asks a question we have been asking since 2010: “Why pay 2-and-20 when they can’t produce returns when markets are volatile?” he said of the industry’s longtime fee standard, roughly 2% for management plus 20% of profits.

    To this we would add what we first said in 2011: why pay any money manager when the Fed is now so deeply enmeshed with stocks, and so all-in risk assets, it has no choice but to step and bail out markets any time there is a modest correction.

    And it does it for free, which is also why retail investors continue to blow out the “smart money.”

    Meanwhile, after complaining for a decade that either volatility or stock dispersion was too low, and that shorting was impossible in a market that only went up, hedge funds got just the environment they desired… and they imploded so spectacularly, when instead of single digit VIX, the “fear gauge” soared to Lehman levels. And a generation of millennial “traders” that had never seen a VIX above 20 was petrified, frozen for weeks, unsure what to do. Well, they won’t have to worry much longer: soon they too will be out of a job.

    That said, there is still some optimism for the hedge fund industry ahead, but it’s tempered: and hedge funds really need at least one year of outperforming the S&P unless they collectively throw in the towel on what has been the worst investment choice ever since this website triggered the expert network crackdown back in 2010.

    “You should be moving back to a more security-selection-driven and less beta-driven environment,” said Taback, who expects the market tumult to persist. “It’s just hard because we all said the same thing last year and the year before that.”

    And while we wait (and wait, and wait) for hedge funds to prove they still need to exist in a centrally-planned, micromanaged world (and collected massive fees), here is the latest HSBC breakdown of the year’s best (yes, there are still some) and worst performing hedge funds.

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  • The Madness Of Crowds, The Sanity Of Gold
    The Madness Of Crowds, The Sanity Of Gold

    Tyler Durden

    Thu, 11/12/2020 – 21:40

    Authored by Matt Piepenburg via GoldSwitzerland.com,

    Crowds, like sheep, are only as safe as the shepherds who guide them.

    If the shepherd is mad, so too is the crowd.

    Today, central bank shepherds are leading the vast majority of investors over a currency cliff. This is easy to predict, despite the fact that most forecasting models are woefully flawed.

    THE FAILURE OF PREDICTIVE MODELS

    Whatever one’s views of the recent Presidential election in the U.S., for example, we can all agree that the professional pollsters and their advanced algorithms got the “blue wave” of an easy Democratic landslide completely, well…

    Wrong.

    Whether predicting viral death rates, political elections, GDP growth, budgets, tax revenues or market direction, the experts and their analytics have been consistently poor in mapping out the near future.

    The World Bank, for example, is projecting global GDP to increase in 2021 by 4%, despite the obvious damage COVID lockdowns have already done to global economies.

    That same World Bank has also confessed to a global debt tally of $260 trillion. This means global debt to GDP is now greater than 3:1, which makes such growth projections openly comical.

    THE FANTASY OF CENTRAL BANK MESSAGING

    As for central banks who print money out of thin air to buy unwanted sovereign debts, they too are projecting miraculous solutions to otherwise staggering debt problems based on, you guessed it: Creating more debt.

    And how will this debt be paid? Easy—with money created by a mouse click at a central bank near you.

    Seem a little bit too good to be true for the economic future?

    Well, the U.S. Fed’s track record for forecasting recessions is 0 in 10, but that has never stopped them from making inaccurate and contradictory projections which resemble a kind of open madness:

    “You will never see another financial crisis in your lifetime.”
    -Janet Yellen, spring 2018

    “I do worry that we could have another financial crisis. ″
    -Janet Yellen, fall 2018

    “There’s no reason to think this (bullish) cycle can’t continue for quite some time, effectively indefinitely.”
    -Jerome Powell –2018

    “The US is on an unsustainable fiscal path; there’s no hiding from it.”
    -Jerome Powell–2019

    In the post-08 “new abnormal” of deficits without tears and embarrassing new theories which argue that unlimited money creation can never lead to inflation , the fantasy forecasters have been quite busy replacing reason with madness.

    PREDICTING THE END?

    But can economies, as well as near-term price actions in markets, truly be forecasted with results better than a coin toss?

    My answer is a clear “yes” and a clear “no.”

    Why?

    Because some things, like the complex movement of a Swiss watch can in fact be trusted, and hence predicted; while other phenomena, like the madness of crowds and their preference for fantasy, cannot.

    TRUST CAN NOT BE FORECASTED

    The vast majority of investors, for example, have an almost blind faith in central banks housed in impressive buildings with fancy folks running them.

    Measuring that faith, as well as the inevitable loss of that faith, is harder than a Rolex repair. In fact, it’s impossible to time, even when objective evidence suggests that the experts are indulging in madness.

    Since 2009, central banks and policy makers have done nothing but put lipstick on an economic pig by using artificial money to buy unwanted IOU’s and then telegraphing the result as “free market capitalism,” or even worse, a “recovery.”

    To ignore such madness in favor of blind faith is itself a kind of madness, and madness, like COVID-19, spreads best in crowds.

    Today, the vast majority of the world has gone financially mad, and most don’t even know it.

    SOME MARKET FORCES CAN BE FORECASTED

    Informed investors, as well as students of history, math and common sense, however, have long since stood outside of the crowd.

    They accept that market laws, like laws of physics, are in fact quite predictive.

    For example, not once in the history of nations, markets or exchanges, has any empire, system or market ever successfully prevented an economic, currency or market collapse by printing gobs and gobs of fake money.

    Not once. Not ever.

    The Austrian school of economics, unlike Keynesian debt madness taken too far, long ago understood that an economic party sustained by debt ends with a brutal hangover caused by that same debt.

    Just as physicists long ago understood that for every action there is an equal and opposite reaction (F=MA), Austrian economists like von Mises similarly understood that market forces are no different.

    For every debt rise there is an equal and opposite debt fall.

    Given that today’s global economy is supported exclusively by the greatest debt levels ever recorded in the history of capital markets, should we not therefore be confident in “forecasting” one helluva a day of reckoning for our global markets, economies and currencies?

    Or as von Mises so bluntly warned:

    “There is no means of avoiding the final collapse of a boom brought about by credit expansion. The alternative is only whether the crisis should come sooner as the result of voluntary abandonment of further credit expansion, or later as a final and total catastrophe of the currency system involved.”

    The short answer, then is yes, some things are foreseeable. 1+1 still equals 2, and debt-based “recoveries” always fail, along with their inflated currencies.

    Despite such cold facts, the current fantasy being pushed by the MMT crowd as well as politicians and central bankers from Japan to the U.S., is that such economic reckonings (including inflation) can be outlawed by a money printer.

    Folks: That’s madness in a nutshell.

    Such short-term fantasy explains how economies right outside your front door are tanking while stock markets (enjoying artificial, low-rate debt rollovers) in the U.S. and elsewhere are approaching new highs.

    Those highs are quantifiably correlated to global money printing like this:

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    Printed, fiat currencies are used to push bond prices so high that bond yields (which move inversely to price) have been so thoroughly distorted that for the first time in market history, we are seeing negative yielding bonds across the globe like this:

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    That too is, well…Madness.

    Such objective charts are staggering, and ought to be a universal wake-up call to any sane observer of global markets.

    Again, to believe otherwise, frankly, smacks of a kind of madness.

    But as Mark Twain warned, crowds often prefer a comforting fantasy over a hard fact, and are thus easy to fool.

    Hence, economic policy makers continue to lead a crowd of sheep over a cliff of unsustainable debt paid for with diluted currencies that destroys their hard-earned wealth.

    The inherent purchasing power of all major currencies are now tanking by the second when compared against timeless measurements of value like gold.

    The following graph is perhaps the most important one you will ever see:

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    In short, global currencies are among the first dominos to fall in an artificial global economy sustained by grotesque levels of debt paid for by equally grotesque levels of fiat money creation.

    Inevitably, economies and markets fall in succession with their currencies. The historical cure for such currency madness is a gold, which far from being a “barbarous relic” of the past, is a timeless solution for the future.

    Again: This is predictable. This is forecastable.

    To consider such evidence yet burry one’s head is a form of madness. To ignore the evidence, or worse yet, hide or downplay the evidence, is even more maddening.

    Most “financial journalists,” for example, studied marketing rather than markets and are hardly reliable “warning bells.”

    They understand click-bait techniques and key words, and get their research from a Google search rather than a basic understanding of economic forces.

    Not 1 in 10 of average investors (or 1 in 100 of average “financial journalists”) have ever paused to consider simple charts like those above.

    That, alas, explains the spread of fantasy as well as the madness of crowds who feel their currencies, stocks, and bonds are in the safe hands of the experts.

    Folks, those experts are paper tigers, not financial lions. For now, however, mad faith in their mad policies continues.

    TIMING THE IMPOSSIBLE, PREPARING FOR THE INEVITABLE

    But for how long?

    Timing human emotion, blind faith or even collective madness is a fool’s errand.

    The emotional element of the global economy is too complex for easy modeling, and right now, the vast majority of market participants still trust the “experts” in general and the central banks in particular, to save them.

    Comforting speeches from the FOMC and empty headlines from the sell-side on the latest tech stock have replaced basic economics, math and history.

    Stated more simply: Fantasy has replaced facts.

    Neither I nor you can time the expiration date of this misguided yet ephemeral trust in using counterfeit money to pay for record-breaking debt levels and historically unmatched asset bubbles.

    But as both history and natural market forces confirm, that trust ends once currencies lose their value and the madness of crowd faith in fantasy is replaced by a mad crowd of broke investors.

    Those who confront facts rather than fantasy, however, can prepare for the unfolding of history and math without having to worry about the precise “timing” of what is otherwise inevitable.

    Toward that end, the historical remedy for the current wave of policy madness has always been the same: Precious Metals.

  • Xi's Forbearance Mode Ends With Rising SOE Defaults
    Xi’s Forbearance Mode Ends With Rising SOE Defaults

    Tyler Durden

    Thu, 11/12/2020 – 21:00

    By Ye Xie, macro commentator at Bloomberg

    Beijing is moving away from its implicit support for state-owned enterprises in the bond market.

    Yongcheng Coal & Electricity’s default this week sent a shock wave through the market, causing dollar bonds of several other Chinese state-owned enterprises to tumble.

    Over the past two months, three of the five onshore bond defaults came from SOEs, according to Goldman Sachs. That brought the total number of SOE defaults this year to six, making 2020 one of the most-active years for defaults in the sector. The 93 billion yuan ($14 billion) in domestic bonds outstanding at the time of default represented 0.46% of all SOE bonds at the start of the year, compared with 0.04% in 2019.

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    Beyond the SOEs, policy makers also seem to be attempting to shake off the moral hazard of “too big to fail.” While the number of total defaults has declined, the size of the non-payments has increased considerably. The 19 domestic bond defaults this year affect 163 billion yuan outstanding, surpassing the 131 billion yuan from 36 non-payments in 2019.

    Make no mistake — systemically important companies are likely to be rescued when push comes to shove. Still, the message is loud and clear: Now that the economy has recovered, China has moved to credit clean-up mode from forbearance mode.

    “This will likely mean defaults will pick up” next year, and there will continue to be a “fat tail” among China’s high-yield bonds, Goldman Sachs analysts Kenneth Ho and Chakki Ting wrote.

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    The U.S. trading session Thursday was dominated by concerns about the pandemic as Chicago issued an advisory urging residents to avoid leaving home. Bonds gained and stocks fell. Before the vaccine potentially brings life back to somewhat normal next year, investors have to face the reality that the virus resurgence may slow the economy in coming months and stimulus is nowhere to be seen during a lame-luck period on Capitol Hill.

    It’s going to be tricky winter.

  • Black Hawk Helicopter Crash In Sinai Kills 8, Mostly Americans
    Black Hawk Helicopter Crash In Sinai Kills 8, Mostly Americans

    Tyler Durden

    Thu, 11/12/2020 – 20:40

    On Thursday a multinational peacekeeping force operating in Egypt suffered disaster when a Black Hawk helicopter went down in the Sinai Peninsula.

    In total eight were killed, including six Americans, one French and one Czech national, according to a military coalition statement. 

    Acting US Defense Secretary Christopher Miller also confirmed the deaths of the Americans and said the Defense Department is “saddened” by their loss. 

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    UH-60 Black Hawk file, Getty Images

    One American reportedly survived the crash and was evacuated to an Israeli hospital for treatment, according to international reports. 

    “During a routine mission in the vicinity of Sharm el-Sheikh, Egypt, nine members of the Multinational Force and Observers (MFO) were involved in a helicopter crash,” reads a statement from MFO. “We are deeply saddened to report that eight uniformed MFO members were killed; six U.S. citizens, one French, and one Czech. One U.S. MFO Member survived and was medically evacuated. Names are being withheld pending notification of next of kin.”

    The MFO has been deployed in Sinai since the 1980s in order to monitor Egypt’s 1979 peace deal with Israel.  

    Subsequent statements out of the Czech Defense Ministry, which was closely involved in the peacekeeping operations, described the deadly crash as “caused by technical issues” which happened in the area of Sharm el-Sheikh.

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    Via CNN

    The restive Sinai region has in the past years seen a significant uptick in terrorist activity, including the presence of ISIS, given it is easy to hide deep in the mountainous terrain and within difficult to access areas for the Egyptian military.

    The US military upped its presence in coordination with Egypt after a string of deadly ISIS terror attacks in 2016 and after, and has tried to rely on advanced technology to monitor the vast wilderness terrain which some reports have called “lawless”. 

  • Official Overseeing Arizona Vote-Count Process Previously Tweeted About Trump's "Neo-Nazi Base"
    Official Overseeing Arizona Vote-Count Process Previously Tweeted About Trump’s “Neo-Nazi Base”

    Tyler Durden

    Thu, 11/12/2020 – 20:20

    Authored by Paul Joseph Watson via Summit News,

    Arizona Secretary of State Katie Hobbs, who is overseeing the vote counting process in the swing state, previously tweeted about President Trump pandering to his “neo-nazi base.”

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    In an August 2017 tweet that is receiving fresh attention, Hobbs asserted, “.@realDonaldTrump has made it abundantly clear he’s more interested in pandering to his neo-nazi base than being @POTUS for all Americans.”

    https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js

    That wouldn’t be much of a shock for someone who lists her pronouns in her Twitter bio along with her support for Black Lives Matter, but given that Hobbs is now instrumental in the Arizona voting process, Trump supporters are understandably concerned.

    “Anyone think we could possibly get a fair shake in front of this activist???” asked Donald Trump Jr.

    https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js

    The Secretary of State has already exercised her power to prevent an inquiry into Arizona’s voting machines.

    “In recent days, the President of Arizona’s State Senate, Karen Fann, called on Hobbs’ office to authorize an independent review of the state’s voting machines. A call that Hobbs immediately shot down,” reports National File.

    “It is patently unreasonable to suggest that, despite there being zero credible evidence of any impropriety or widespread irregularities, election officials nonetheless have a responsibility to prove a negative,” Hobbs wrote in response.

    *  *  *

    New limited edition merch now available! Click here.

    In the age of mass Silicon Valley censorship It is crucial that we stay in touch. I need you to sign up for my free newsletter here. Also, I urgently need your financial support here.

  • Ticketmaster Unveils Plan To Verify Vaccination Status
    Ticketmaster Unveils Plan To Verify Vaccination Status

    Tyler Durden

    Thu, 11/12/2020 – 20:00

    With several COVID-19 vaccines reportedly just around the corner, Ticketmaster will be verifying concert fans’ vaccination status, or whether they’ve tested negative for the coronavirus within a 24 to 72-hour window, according to Billboard.

    As we’ve noted several times over the past few months, immunity passports are the future of COVID-19.

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    The plan, still in development phase, will employ three prongs; the Ticketmaster digital app, third-party health status providers such as CLEAR Health Pass or IBM’s Digital Health Pass, and testing / vaccine distribution providers such as CVS Minute Clinic and Labcorp.

    Here’s how it would work, if approved: After purchasing a ticket for a concert, fans would need to verify that they have already been vaccinated (which would provide approximately one year of COVID-19 protection [ZH: really?]) or test negative for coronavirus approximately 24 to 72 hours prior to the concert. The length of coverage a test would provide would be governed by regional health authorities — if attendees of a Friday night concert had to be tested 48 hours in advance, most could start the testing process the day before the event. If it was a 24-hour window, most people would likely be tested the same day of the event at a lab or a health clinic.

    Once the test was complete, the fan would instruct the lab to deliver the results to their health pass company, like CLEAR or IBM. If the tests were negative, or the fan was vaccinated, the health pass company would verify the attendee’s COVID-19 status to Ticketmaster, which would then issue the fan the credentials needed to access the event. If a fan tested positive or didn’t take a test to verify their status, they would not be granted access to the event. –Billboard

    According to the report, Ticketmaster will not store or have access to fans’ medical records, and will only receive ‘green light or red light’ on whether a fan is cleared to attend an event.

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    At present, the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has yet to approve third-party health information providers for real-time verification, however Ticketmaster president Mark Yovich is confident that demand for such screening services will be in heavy demand for multiple applications such as air travel, employment verification and theme park entry.

    “We’re already seeing many third-party health care providers prepare to handle the vetting — whether that is getting a vaccine, taking a test, or other methods of review and approval – which could then be linked via a digital ticket so everyone entering the event is verified,” Yovich told Billboard. “Ticketmaster’s goal is to provide enough flexibility and options that venues and fans have multiple paths to return to events, and is working to create integrations to our API and leading digital ticketing technology as we will look to tap into the top solutions based on what’s green-lit by officials and desired by clients.”

    For Ticketmaster, two new technologies at the companies will help its clients scale the program. The first is digital ticketing that’s linked to a fan’s identity, eliminates paper tickets and can be restricted from being transferred or resold. Ticketmaster also plans to deploy its new SmartEvent system, which helps event organizers and fans manage social distancing, delayed entry and provide possible opportunities for contact tracing. Many of the safety parameters will be set by regional health officials and event organizers. Event organizers also have the ability to set their own prevention protocols, like sanitation, mask compliance and social distancing. –Billboard

    According to the report, implementing this COVID-19 verification plan will be key to the survival of the live entertainment industry during the pandemic. 

    “In order for live events to return, technology and science are going to play huge roles in establishing integrated protocols so that fans, artists, and employees feel safe returning to venues,” says Marianne Herman, co-founder and principal reBUILD20, which focuses on helping entertainment and live events companies develop COVID-19 strategies (per Billboard).

    “Integrating ticketing platforms with the guests verified testing results is one key way to reimagine how we’re going to get fans back to live events. The experience of attending live events will look completely different, but innovation married with consistent implementation will provide a framework to get the live sports and event industry back to work.”

  • Gold Is A Lifeline For Many Indians During Pandemic
    Gold Is A Lifeline For Many Indians During Pandemic

    Tyler Durden

    Thu, 11/12/2020 – 19:40

    Via SchiffGold.com,

    Gold has helped Indians weather the economic storm caused by the coronavirus pandemic.

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    The government response to COVID-19 has ravaged the Indian economy. As a result, many banks are reluctant to extend credit due to fear of defaults. In this tight lending environment, many Indians are using their stashes of gold to secure loans.

    Using gold as collateral for loans has a long history in India. For generations, farming communities and rural households used gold as a means of financing, often pledging it as collateral to raise funds to plant the following year’s crops. Today, Indians in urban settings often use gold loans to meet expenditures for healthcare, business, education, and marriage.

    According to a recent report by the World Gold Council, demand for gold loans, both through banks and non-banking financial companies (NBFC) has grown in response to the economic impact of the COVID-19 pandemic. Organized lending backed by gold is expected to grow from $47 billion in fiscal 2020 to $55.2 billion in FY2021. This doesn’t account for the massive informal gold lending market driven by pawnbrokers and private moneylenders, along with the robust grey market economy prevalent in rural parts of the country.

    Somasundaram P.R., head of the World Gold Council’s Indian operations, told Reuters gold will continue to serve as a vital lifeline as credit shrinks.

    As banks could exhibit greater risk aversion in the current context, gold loans would be a convenient route for many customers to raise liquidity and working capital.”

    For many Indians, gold is a lifesaver, providing liquidity that they otherwise wouldn’t have.

    Indians traditionally buy and hold gold. Collectively, Indian households own an estimated 25,000 tons of gold and that number may be higher given the large black market in the country. The yellow metal is interwoven into the country’s marriage ceremonies and cultural rites. Indians also value gold as a store of wealth, especially in poor rural regions. Two-thirds of India’s gold demand comes from these areas, where the vast majority of people live outside the official tax system.

    Gold is not just a luxury in India. Even poor people buy gold in the Asian nation. According to an ICE 360 survey in 2018, one in every two households in India purchased gold within the last five years. Overall, 87% of households in the country own some amount of the yellow metal. Even households at the lowest income levels in India own some gold. According to the survey, more than 75% of families in the bottom 10% had managed to buy gold.

    Gold was also a major source of liquidity in 2016 when the Indian government launched a demonetization scheme. In November of that year, the Indian government declared that 1,000 and 500 rupee notes would no longer be valid. They gave the public just four hours notice. The 1,000 and 500 rupee notes made up 86 % of the currency in circulation in the country. With a single pronouncement, the Indian government made virtually all of the cash in India valueless. Many Indians have thwarted a government policy to bring the underground economy out of the shadows by converting their “black money” into gold.

    Indians understand that gold tends to store value, and that in the end, gold is money. If they have gold, they know they will be able to get the goods and services they need – even in the event of an economic meltdown. And while westerners may not embrace the cultural and religious aspects of the Indian love affair with gold, the economic reasons for their devotion to the yellow metal are every bit as applicable in places like the US.

  • How Quibi's Boomer Execs Sabotaged A $2BN Company By Being Completely Out Of Touch
    How Quibi’s Boomer Execs Sabotaged A $2BN Company By Being Completely Out Of Touch

    Tyler Durden

    Thu, 11/12/2020 – 19:20

    the downfall of Quibi has created an interesting counterpoint to the fall of Theranos. Though the companies were situated in very different industries, the Theranos story centers around a young woman who treacherously conned investors, journalists and even some of her own employees, before a small group of rebels gave the story up to the Wall Street Journal, which brough the whole sham crashing down.

    On the other hand, Quibi wasn’t an illegal scheme; it remains an obviously legitimate business, and it’s certainly possible that a rival like Netflix or Hulu might scoop up some of the assets Quibi might be selling after Jeffrey Katzenberg announced plans to shut it down after an abysmal rollout during the pandemic that made the company into a laughingstock. Customers who signed up for Quibi’s free trial quickly discovered, much to their eventual disappointment, that there was no way to watch the shows on their laptop, or a TV. Quibi’s founders effectively engaged in an act of self-sabotage by ensuring that the smartphone app was the only venue in which their content – the quick “bites” from which Quibi’s name is (again, confusingly) derived – could be consumed.

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    Many seemingly bone-headed decisions about the product, programming and the rollout have been documented by Bloomberg and WSJ (we’ve added our two cents’ worth here and here), but since announcing plans to shut down, Katzenberg and Whitman, who have both been saddled with massive personal losses from the venture, have tried their hardest to project an air of humility and graciousness.

    However, that task just got a lot harder, as Bloomberg’s Businessweek earlier today published a deeply sourced piece elaborating on the many flaws and failures in Katzenberg’s initial vision for the product. Those problems were only exacerbated by the out-of-touch arrogance exhibited by Katzenberg and his partner, Whitman, whom he recruited to the project, according to reports. Viewers who watched Whitman’s early CNBC interviews pitching Quibi probably remember cringe-worthy moments, like when she reveals that the company’s name is derived from the phrase “Quick Bites”, or when she described Quibi as a revolutionary new medium, seemingly without realizing that hilarious short videos, sometimes with scripted plots, have been posted to YouTube for free since the mid-aughts.

    Between shelling out $6 million to Reese Witherspoon to do a voice-over for an animal TV program that nobody watched, to Whitman awkwardly placing her newly purchased LA condo back on the market without saying a word to anyone at the company, Bloomberg chronicles many details from a company that was driven into the ground by two stubborn, know-it-all boomer executives who thought their focus-group-backed wisdom was simply beyond reproach.

    The Condo Incident

    Whitman, one of Silicon Valley’s most powerful women, had moved to L.A. to work with people like that. She’d been recruited a year earlier by Jeffrey Katzenberg, the Hollywood megaproducer who co-founded DreamWorks Animation, who was betting that the future of entertainment was short-form videos with old-school studio production values. Whitman was to be the CEO of a streaming service with episodic programming that aimed to wow a generation raised on YouTube.

    But the service, called Quibi, premiered this past spring to crickets and jeers. Over the summer, Whitman talked her team through a retooling plan and acted as though she planned to remain in L.A. for a good, long while. But in early August, less than two years after she bought the Sierra Towers condo, she put it back on the market.

    Her staffers noticed. Several circulated the real estate listing, spurring a wave of quiet searches for employment elsewhere. More than one marks that as the beginning of the end for Quibi. “When your CEO puts their L.A. home up for sale less than two years after buying it, that’s when you know the writing is on the wall,” says one former Quibi employee, who, like most of the 24 current and former staffers interviewed for this story, spoke on condition of anonymity to protect future job prospects.

    That Song From ‘Trolls’

    When Katzenberg and Whitman finally broke news of the shutdown to employees, an unexpectedly swift death for a company that had launched its product just 7 months before. As misty eyes filled the room, Katzenberg reportedly encouraged his team to listen to a song from the animated feature film “Trolls” (one of Katzenberg’s former projects) to help lift their spirits.

    Toward the end of October, Quibi’s seventh month in the crowded streaming market, Whitman and Katzenberg assembled their employees on a video call to tell them the company would be shutting down around Dec. 1. A misty-eyed, apologetic Katzenberg encouraged employees to comfort themselves by playing the song Get Back Up Again from the DreamWorks movie Trolls.

    TV On The Internet

    In particular, several staffers told Bloomberg that Whitman and Katzenberg insisted on recruiting the most expensive Hollywood talent, instead of relying on cheaper social media stars with established followings among a younger audience that Quibi and its rivals covet. This was perhaps one of the biggest reasons why the company failed so quickly, as it blew its load by paying $6 million for Reese Witherspoon to do a voice-over for an animal show that nobody watched.

    Bloomberg apparently saw a pitch-deck slide breaking down salaries paid for some of these “lighthouse” shows and…well…

    Several current and former Quibi employees say Katzenberg built himself a punishing schedule. In the weeks after Quibi went live, he’d rise by 3:30 each morning, work out while reading the news from 5 a.m. to 7 a.m., and conduct as many as 20 FaceTime meetings a day, turning most any interaction along the way into an impromptu meeting about the company. He divided show ideas into three categories: the titular “quick bites” (short, one-off videos), “daily essentials” (news programs), and “lighthouse” shows (projects involving A-listers). The latter ate up most of the budget. According to a Quibi pitch deck seen by Bloomberg Businessweek, lighthouse shows generally cost $20,000 to $125,000 a minute, compared with roughly $10,000 a minute for daily essentials. Fuqua’s series, #FreeRayshawn, which stars Laurence Fishburne and Stephan James, cost $15 million for 15 episodes of 10 minutes each, a competitive budget for today’s streaming services. Netflix Inc.’s Stranger Things costs $6 million to $8 million for episodes that typically run for 45 minutes to an hour, and Disney+ is expected to spend as much as $25 million an episode on Marvel shows such as Hawkeye and WandaVision. But in another respect, Quibi sweetened the deals far beyond what other streaming services were willing to offer. Two years in, creators would be free to edit their Quibi shows together into an extended work and sell the longer version somewhere else. After seven years the company’s rights to the short-form versions would expire.

    Katzenberg also applied his decades of development experience, something current and former employees say was part of the problem. The 69-year-old former wunderkind often insisted that he weigh in on everything from casting to wardrobe to graphic design, frequently via FaceTime with printouts of his notes next to him. He invested aggressively in somewhat out-there series with recognizable names attached, such as Most Dangerous Game, starring Liam Hemsworth and Christoph Waltz; Dummy, starring Anna Kendrick; and Thanks a Million, a giveaway reality show produced by Jennifer Lopez. To narrate voiceover for Fierce Queens, a wildlife program produced by BBC Studios, Quibi paid Reese Witherspoon $6 million. (Her husband, Jim Toth, was Quibi’s head of content acquisitions.)

    What’s Next?

    Though SJW reporters would like to have the world believe that only men are capable of ‘failing up’, Whitman just might be moving on from Quibi with a job in the Biden administration, despite her history of…running for office (albeit, in California) as a Republican.

    Whitman is an early contender for several cabinet-level positions in President-elect Joe Biden’s administration, according to three people familiar with the matter. Weeks after she put her L.A. condo up for sale, the former Republican gubernatorial candidate appeared during the Democratic National Convention to endorse Biden on national TV. “For me, the choice is simple,” Whitman said. “I’m with Joe.” It’s unclear what Katzenberg will do next, but the producer seems less likely to leave the entertainment industry behind. “One might wonder why sailing off into the sunset on a boat in the Caribbean isn’t an option for Jeffrey,” says Shapiro, the producer of Let’s Go, Atsuko! “But I don’t get the sense he’ll want this to be the last chapter of his storied career.”

    It’s worth noting that Katzenberg is also a major Democratic bundler, one of the biggest in Hollywood.

    Many of her former employees weren’t so lucky. Several complained to Bloomberg about feeling ‘blindsided’ by the shutdown, as Whitman and Katzenberg apparently kept the true enormity of the company’s fiscal recklessness from the rest of the staff. In the end, many employees credited Katzenberg and his enormously over-inflated self-confidence, and his micromanaging style, for doing far more harm than good.

    In the end, some $2 billion of investors’ money was wasted. But at least Reese Witherspoon managed to secure a pretty generous payday.

  • Beijing Faces Extreme Pressure To Publish Promising COVID-19 Vaccine Data
    Beijing Faces Extreme Pressure To Publish Promising COVID-19 Vaccine Data

    Tyler Durden

    Thu, 11/12/2020 – 19:00

    News about Brazilian regulators’ decision to halt a Phase 3 Sinovac trial amid rumors that a patient had died under questionable circumstances heaped more humiliation on Beijing this month, adding insult to injury after Pfizer unveiled the first “extremely promising” headline immunity data for its mRNA vaccine, snagging a “win” in the race for the West.

    Just weeks ago, Beijing may have indulged in some schadenfraude as AstraZeneca’s partnership with Oxford finally got its trial in the US back up and running after a month-plus delay. But now the shoe was on the other foot.

    Though the Brazil trial was reinstated within two days, it allowed Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro to declare “victory” by appearing to validate his persistent questioning of the Chinese vaccination effort. His comments have no doubt become a problem for Beijing, which must secure the trust of partner nations in the developing world to develop markets for the vaccines its producing for the virus it helped to unleash.

    Even Russia has produced data showing the Gameleya Institute vaccine is “92% effective”. As Reuters pointed out in a piece published Thursday, Beijing needs a win on the vaccine front.

    “As China continues to push its own vaccines through the final stage of clinical trial in the midst of Pfizer’s announcement, the need for Beijing to address public perception about its vaccine safety issues is more pressing now than ever,” said Xiaoqing Lu Boynton, a consultant at Albright Stonebridge Group who focuses on health care and life sciences.

    Reporters for Reuters have detailed a “”vaccine web” illustrating various markets where Chinese vaccine makers have agreements to test, and market, their vaccines, provided they’re approved by domestic regulators.

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    There’s little question, according to other experts who spoke with Reuters, that the US’s wins on the vaccine front threaten China’s “vaccine diplomacy” plans, since Beijing has now transformed the race for a vaccine into an opportunity to exhibit China’s technological superiority to the world.

    The “problem for me is global public good or China public good — it’s two different notions,” said Nicolas Chapuis, the European Union’s ambassador to China. While he praised China’s decision to join the WHO-backed vaccine program, he said many questions remain on distribution, price and international certification.“To be certified samples have to be given,” he said. “Samples have not been given.”

    China has promised to prioritize providing doses for more than 60 countries, including governments that have received infrastructure loans under Xi’s Belt and Road Initiative. Indonesia, Bangladesh, Pakistan and Morocco have formal agreements with China’s major vaccine manufacturers, and countries in Latin America and the Caribbean have been promised a $1 billion loan to purchase doses from them.

    Still, China’s setback in Brazil combined with Pfizer’s breakthrough “puts China’s vaccine diplomacy in jeopardy,” said Yongwook Ryu, assistant professor of East Asian international relations at Lee Kuan Yew School of Public Policy at the National University of Singapore.

    But before China can start swapping vaccines for favorable RBI deal terms, Beijing needs to curry trust. And although China has already started using SinoVac’s vaccine on hundreds, if not thousands, of people under a wide-ranging emergency program, that approach might not be enough. China’s biotech leaders need to provide real transparency, experts said.

    “The issue is the lack of transparency,” Ryu said. “So the right thing for the Chinese government to do is to make its trial results and related information public, so that experts can scrutinize them.”

    China has already administered the vaccine, including the one from Sinovac Biotech Ltd. whose trial was just paused in Brazil, to hundreds of thousands of people under an expansive emergency use program. But none of the Chinese frontrunners have published any preliminary data from Phase 3 trials as Pfizer has done.

    Reuters points out that even if China ultimately lags in the vaccine race, it could still emerge as a global leader in distributing the vaccines. A Chinese company already has a deal to distribute the Pfizer vaccine in China. Yet, somehow, we imagine Beijing won’t be satisfied with simply leading on the distribution end.

  • US Tops 150k Daily COVID-19 Cases For First Time: Live Updates
    US Tops 150k Daily COVID-19 Cases For First Time: Live Updates

    Tyler Durden

    Thu, 11/12/2020 – 18:44

    Summary:

    • US cases hit new daily record
    • NJ positivity rate surges
    • Chicago issues stay at home order
    • Georgia Secretary of State to quarantine after announcing hand recount
    • French ICU occupancy up to 96.6%
    • Detroit returns to remote learning
    • CDC releases guidance reminding users that masks also help protect wearers
    • Austria sees new daily record in cases
    • UK outbreak may finally be starting to slow
    • Global cases see new record
    • Global deaths top 12k for first time
    • Cases rising in all 50 states for first time
    • New cases finally starting to weaken in Europe
    • Moderna says vaccine data incoming
    • Turkey bans smoking on crowded streets
    • Japan suffers biggest daily jump in cases yet
    • Hungary strikes deal for Russian vaccine

    * * *

    Update (1830ET): For the first time, the US has reported more than 150k coronavirus cases in a single day, marking the latest in a series of disturbing national records.

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    As the chart above shows, the number of deaths has continued to climb, producing more alarming and leading to governors around the country tightening restrictions this week.

    * * *

    Update (1500ET): Just like the rest of the country, New Jersey is seeing the virus come roaring back as officials confirmed Thursday that the Garden State has seen more than 10,000 new cases since Monday, and that the positivity rate in the state has soared to 12% (neighboring PA, by comparison, is at 18.3%. NY, by contrast, has a positivity rate that’s still much, much lower, by comparison.

    Still, officials in New York are worried that worsening numbers in NJ could trigger a bigger outbreak across the Hudson.

    “We have to get back to the mindset that saw us crush the curve throughout the spring,” Murphy said in another tweet amid signs that exhaustion with social distancing in lockdowns was leading to lax compliance.

    * * *

    * * *

    Update (1410ET): As new cases and hospitalizations in Illinois hit new records, the city of Chicago, the country’s third-largest, has just issued an “advisory” asking residents to call off Thanksgiving, and engage in only “essential” trips, like to school, work or the store, for the next 30 days.

    • CHICAGO ADVISORY INCLUDES LEAVING FOR WORK, SCHOOL
    • CHICAGO RECOMMENDS CALLING OFF THANKSGIVING GATHERINGS
    • CHICAGO ADVISORY TO STAY IN PLACE FOR 30 DAYS UNLESS CHANGED

    The advisory takes effect Monday, with Mayor Lori Lightfoot warning that deaths in the city could surpass 1,000 by the end of the year if the virus continues on its trajectory

    In other news, Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger has said he will quarantine after his wife tested positive for COVID-19, raising the question: Who will count the votes?

    * * *

    Update (1310ET): After the government affirmed that France’s lockdown-lite measures would stay in place for at least another two weeks, official data showed that French ICU occupancy, one of the most closely watched indicators in Europe, has risen again to 96.6%, a new post-springtime high.

    “We count in #France in recent days a hospitalization every 30 seconds and an admission to intensive care every 3 minutes,” PM Jean Castex warned.

    In total, France has some 4,803 COVID-19 patients in its ICUs (with 40% of them under 65). Presently, 25% of all deaths in France right now are due to COVID-19

    Over the past 2 weeks, 72,279 fines have been handed out for COVID-19 related infractions, according to Castex, the government’s pointman.

    Over in Germany, Chancellor Angela Merkel just raised the possibility of extending that country’s COVID-19 restrictions through the Christmas holiday. Though the pace of the outbreak has slowed, Merkel said the levels of spread are still too high, with Germany looking to reduce cases to 50 per 100,000, from 138 as of Thursday.

    Also, in case you forgot, the CDC has released new guidance reminding Americans that masks offer protection benefits to wearers (as opposed to, well, everybody else).

    * * *

    Update (0945ET): As the US heads closer to the Biden lockdown, the Detroit Free Press is reporting that Detroit schools are about to halt face-to-face learning because of rising COVID-19 cases and hospitalizations.

    Per the report, Detroit Public Schools are halting in-person learning through Jan. 11, as COVID-19, meaning the city’s 50k students likely won’t return to classrooms until next semester.

    “All classes will be held online starting Monday, November 16 due to the rapid increase in the COVID-19 infection rate in Detroit,” the district said in an announcement. “Face-to-face learning and learning centers will remain open this Thursday and Friday to provide families time to rearrange educational support for students.”

    Other nearby Michigan districts that have reverted to online learning in recent days include: Grosse Pointe, Holly, Huron Valley, Pontiac, Rochester and Utica.

    Meanwhile, Austria has become the latest EU member to report a new daily record, even after tightening restrictions on nonessential businesses last week. The country reported 9,262 new cases, and 44 deaths.

    In a rare bit of good news, a recent UK symptoms study has put the COVID-19 rate of spread below 1, indicating that the outbreak is finally starting to slow.

    * * *

    Around the world, the number of new COVID-19 deaths recorded over the 24 hours to Wednesday topped 12k for the first time, a new daily record, as the global coronavirus pandemic places unprecedented pressure on health-care systems from Paris to the Mountain West.

    Cases are also rising in all 50 states for the first time since the pandemic began.

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    To be sure, over the past week, the number of new cases has finally started to plateau, or decline, in the UK, Germany and France. Meanwhile, hard-hit neighbors like Belgium, the Netherlands and the Czech Republic have seen significant declines in infection rates as well, as the chart below shows.

    But the number of hospitalized patients is still growing: In the US, new national records north of 60k have been reached, while France, Italy and the UK have reached their highest levels since the springtime. Governors from New York to California have imposed new restrictions on businesses, social gatherings and movement this week.

    By now, all of these countries have enacted at least some restrictions, including closing bars and restaurants, or at least limiting their indoor service capacity, closing non-essential shops, or barring alcohol sales after 2200, like Sweden just did.

    In Germany, the Robert Koch Institute revealed that officials had counted another 21,866 new cases over the past 24 hours, bringing the country’s total number to 727,553. Germany has also recorded 11,982 deaths. Since the country imposed its “lockdown lite” earlier this month, the curve has flattening ever-so-slightly, a sign that “we are not completely at the mercy of this virus,” Germany’s Lothar Wieler, the head of the RKI, said.

    The number of confirmed cases worldwide has now topped 52 million, after Johns Hopkins reported the first new daily record for new confirmed cases worldwide yesterday, with 666,955 new cases yesterday.

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    With vaccine news dominating the headlines this week, Hungary has reportedly agreed to buy its first doses of the Russian-made “Sputnik 5” COVID-19 vaccine after authorities in the country revealed that it was 92% effective at preventing infection, according to initial data from the final stage trial.

    Even more importantly: In the US, Moderna – a company working on a vaccine with the same mRNA technology as the Pfizer vaccine – said that it finally has enough data for an “interim analysis” of the late-stage experimental trial. The company confirmed that the threshold of 53 patients sickened has been reached, meaning the data analysis on the results will soon be ready.The news predictably sent Moderna shares rocketed 5.3% in premarket trade.

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    BMO Capital Markets analyst George Farmer (outperform) said the announcement indicates first interim results could be “coming any day”, and that it has a greater than 95% chance of coming in positive. Jefferies analysts led by Michael J. Yee said they expect the results will be positive, with an efficacy rate around the 90% level seen in the Pfizer vaccine, and that we “could hear back soon”.

    Finally, Turkey has banned smoking in some public places to try and stamp out a surge in infections. The country’s interior minister decreed late Wednesday that smoking would be banned on busy streets, at bus stops and in public squares. The ban was enacted after the country determined that Turks were “incorrectly using their masks by lowering them below their chins to smoke cigarettes.” Roughly one-third of Turks smoke, according to WHO data.

    Here’s some more news from Thursday morning and overnight:

    Japan hit a new daily record of coronavirus infections Thursday as authorities began hinting they may take stronger measures to arrest the increase. At least 1,634 cases were recorded nationwide, according to a tally by national broadcaster NHK, topping the previous high set during a surge in August. While numbers are low in absolute terms compared to many other countries, a spike in northern Japan is leading to concerns cases could spread as winter sets in (Source: Bloomberg).

    Some regions in China might see clusters of infections during the winter season, Li Bin, the deputy director of National Health Commission, said at a briefing. China will enhance testing capacity, improve monitoring and increase testing on imported frozen food (Source: Bloomberg).

    India’s medical research body and the Serum Institute completed the enrollment for phase 3 trial of the Oxford University AstraZeneca COVID-19 vaccine, while the Serum Institute has produced 40mln doses of the vaccine and the medical research body stated that it was the most advanced vaccine in human testing in India. Furthermore, it was also reported that the Serum Institute received bulk COVID-19 vaccine from Novavax which it will soon fill and finish them in vials, while it is to test the Novavax vaccine in a phase 3 trial in India (Source: Newswires).

    Belgium reported fewer Covid-19 patients in intensive care for a second straight day, providing further evidence the peak in hospitalizations may have passed. There are now 1,463 patients in ICU, down 7 from the day before and 11 fewer than the record 1,474 of Nov. 9. Belgium has a total capacity of about 2,000 ICU beds. Hospital admissions fell to 542 from 609 the prior day, with the total number of hospitals beds taken dropping to less than 7,000 again (Source: Bloomberg).

    New Zealand health officials are asking people who work in downtown Auckland to stay home Friday while they trace the movements of a person who may have contracted coronavirus from within the community. New Zealand earlier this year succeeded in eliminating community transmission of the coronavirus by imposing a strict nationwide lockdown (Source: Bloomberg).

  • Biden Administration Expected To Revamp Focus On White Collar Crime
    Biden Administration Expected To Revamp Focus On White Collar Crime

    Tyler Durden

    Thu, 11/12/2020 – 18:40

    With an incoming President-elect Biden, it’s looking like the party for Wall Street – and the white collar fraud that it brings with it – could be coming to an end.

    While during the Trump administration fines and prosecutions related to white collar crime fell, lawyers anticipate it “ramping up” under a Biden administration. White collar defense attorney Robert Anello told Bloomberg that his practice “ground to a halt” during the Trump administration. 

    In addition to prosecuting white collar crime on Wall Street, tax cheats and foreign bribes will also be in focus under a Biden administration, Anello said. There will also be plenty of interest in the government funding provided as part of the Paycheck Protection Program, he said. 

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    Brandon Garrett, professor of law at Duke University, said the change under the Biden administration may not be noticeable right away, as white collar cases take time to assemble. But he expects more cases overall, including insider trading and accounting scams. We have a few suggestions as to where they could get started…

    Garrett said: “There’s often kind of a life cycle to fraud. If we have lax enforcement for a number of years, there will be a lot of serious misconduct and fraud that will have been brushed under the rug and so I would expect a serious backlog of cases of all types.”

    The Trump administration, trying to present itself as “pro-business”, has overseen a large decline in enforcement. Prosecution of white collar crime has hit record lows, helped along by the slowing of the courts as a result of Covid-19. Syracuse University’s Transactional Records Access Clearinghouse shows a 30% drop in annual prosecutions since the Obama administration. 

    Corporate fines were down 76% in Trump’s first 20 months in office, compared to the 20 final months during Obama’s administration. During the same time, corporate penalties totaled $3.4 billion, spread out between 17 financial institutions and 13 public companies, compared to $14.15 billion, 71 financial institutions and 34 public companies during Obama’s administration. 

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    Cheryl Bader, a professor at Fordham Law School in New York, said: “Anything would be a step up from Trump’s complete neglect of white-collar crime. He wants to see himself as the business-friendly president.”

    “When Trump talks about law and order, he’s not talking about law and order as relates to white-collar crime. He’s talking about law and order, frankly in terms of minority people,” said Joel Cohen, a former federal prosecutor in New York now in private practice.

    The Trump administration did, however, oversee a $2.9 billion penalty for Goldman Sachs’ Malaysia unit and felony charges lodged against Purdue Pharma LP, over the last four years. 

    A. Brian Albritton, who served as the top federal prosecutor in central Florida under Presidents George W. Bush and Obama, said Trump was more focused on violent crime: “Violent crime has been a priority for the Trump administration. I would anticipate fewer resources devoted to immigration crimes.”

  • Daily Briefing – November 12, 2020
    Daily Briefing – November 12, 2020


    Tyler Durden

    Thu, 11/12/2020 – 18:25

    Real Vision managing editor, Ed Harrison, is joined by editor, Jack Farley, to break down a day of heavy selling across sectors as COVID-19 cases surge to unseen levels. Ed interprets what the Citigroup Economic Surprise Index means and shares his views on how, shutdown or not, the rise of coronavirus will likely depress economic activity. Ed and Jack discuss the flattening of the U.S. Treasury yield and the heavy selling of value equities, with Jack asking Ed whether the rotation into value will resurge or is in fact over. After quickly reviewing price action in volatility markets, Ed and Jack give a sneak peek of the “Paradigm Shift: Investment Ideas for a World in Flux” featuring Jim Chanos, Mike Green, Chamath Palihapitiya, Hugh Hendry, Kyle Bass, Jeremy Grantham, Jim Grant, William White, and many other legends of the investment world. In the intro, Peter Cooper explores the current state of the coronavirus epidemic in the States and reviews the jobless claims report that came out today. For the charts that Ed and Jack discuss, click here: https://rvtv.io/3lrQLY0.

  • Trump Campaign Highlights Alleged Dead Voters Casting Ballots In Pennsylvania
    Trump Campaign Highlights Alleged Dead Voters Casting Ballots In Pennsylvania

    Tyler Durden

    Thu, 11/12/2020 – 18:20

    Authored by Jack Phillips via The Epoch Times,

    President Donald Trump’s campaign on late Wednesday highlighted several alleged cases of deceased people voting during last week’s presidential election in the key state of Pennsylvania.

    “Voter records show someone used the identity of John H. Granahan of Allentown, Pennsylvania to vote in the recent election, even though Granahan died in May 2019,” the campaign said. “The Dusckas Martin Funeral Home and Crematory ran an obituary of Granahan’s death when he passed away.”

    The campaign noted that Judy Presto of Southpark, Pennsylvania, died in 2013, adding that “someone registered her to vote in September 2020 and cast a ballot under her name in last week’s election.” It also included an obituary of Presto published by the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette at the time.

    “Elizabeth Bartman of Drexel Hill, Pennsylvania is shown as having registered to vote in September 2020 and cast a ballot in last week’s election, even though she died in 2008,” Trump’s campaign also said. Her obituary was published by the Philadelphia Inquirer 12 years ago.

    The office of Pennsylvania’s Secretary of State hasn’t yet responded to a request for comment as of Thursday morning and has not issued a public response to the campaign’s latest claims in other news outlets.

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    The campaign, hours before sending out that news release, asserted that deceased voters cast ballots in Georgia as well. Georgia is also considered a key swing state. The campaign also noted that obituaries for the alleged deceased voters were published in local news outlets such as the Atlanta Journal-Constitution.

    The Georgia Secretary of State’s office, which handles elections, had not responded to a request for comment on Wednesday.

    Both Pennsylvania and Georgia were called for Democratic candidate Joe Biden by major news outlets. The Epoch Times has not declared either Biden or Trump a winner in either state pending the outcome of investigations, legal challenges, and the Electoral College rendering the final say on the presidential race.

    Biden currently leads Trump by about 50,000 votes in Pennsylvania and by approximately 24,000 votes in Georgia, according to data from each respective state’s election agencies. Trump’s team has filed a number of lawsuits in both states, as well as in Nevada, Arizona, and Michigan. They have also requested recounts in Georgia and Wisconsin.

    Counting in Pennsylvania is still ongoing. York, Bucks, and Chester counties were not able to finish sorting out a combined figure of about 16,000 provisional ballots on Wednesday, county officials said. About 10,000 mail-in ballots that were received by counties three days after Election Day ended are part of a GOP challenge to the U.S. Supreme Court that includes several attorneys general from Republican-led states.

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  • US Color Revolution: The Not So Phantom Menace
    US Color Revolution: The Not So Phantom Menace

    Tyler Durden

    Wed, 11/11/2020 – 23:40

    Authored by Tom Luongo via Gold, Goats, ‘n Guns blog,

    “There is no civility, there is only politics…

    The Bureaucrats are in charge now…”

    – Senator Palpatine

    The Black Revolution in the U.S. is proceeding according to script. We are into the 3rd act of it.

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    Act I was the Coronapocalypse setting the stage for vastly expanded government powers and the systemic undermining of the sitting President.

    Act II was the summer of violence and fake polling data which created the illusion of a society at war with that same President for not addressing the needs of the people.

    Underneath the headlines the forces arrayed against Trump were building the infrastructure to ensure that however the people voted on November 3rd, the outcome was pre-determined in their favor against him.

    Act III is the election itself and the aftermath. The coup has begun. The pressure campaign to force the incumbent Trump, hated by the establishment, to concede has ratcheted up to eleven.

    This is all very normal for color revolutions, just ask Alexander Lukashenko in Belarus or Viktor Yanukovich formerly of the Ukraine. We can’t ask Slobodon Milosovic. He dead.

    But the one thing happened they didn’t count on, Trump actually winning the election by margins in swing states that couldn’t be overcome without overt and blatant fraud.

    That’s created the opportunity for a complete reversal of the current results and a successful countering of the color revolution strategy, which rests on a media-made frenzy supported by foreign government leaders to oust the sitting president from power quickly without proper adherence to the process.

    And that feeds the plot points for the next eight weeks until Congress convenes to certify (or not) the Electoral College.

    President Trump refuses to concede the election, and rightly so. There are multiple paths to not only victory for him but also exposing the deep corruption of the election process and the people who control it.

    Lukashenko survived the color revolution in Belarus because the attempt there was ham-fisted. It lacked the ingredients necessary to pull it off – identitarian division within the people and ‘corporate’ sponsorship.

    The conditions weren’t ripe for that kind of result. All he had to do was offer reforms once the energy died down and make peace with Russia and he would survive.

    Ousting him from power may not have been the primary goal, but achieving the secondary goal of severing EU and US ties to it and forcing Russia to devote resources to Belarus is almost as important.

    So, if Trump wants to lead the nation he has to show it by fighting tooth and claw, just like Lukashenko did. And that means organizing support for him across the country. This is why he is incredibly smart to organize rallies. According to Axios:

    President Trump plans to brandish obituaries of people who supposedly voted but are dead — plus hold campaign-style rallies — in an effort to prolong his fight against apparent insurmountable election results, four Trump advisers told me during a conference call this afternoon.

    “Insurmountable election results??” Really? A few thousand votes separates Trump from outright sweeping all the battleground states whose vote totals are very sketchy and this is ‘insurmountable?’

    This is what I mean by the pressure campaign having gone plaid. There is no responsible journalism left within the major media outlets.

    Only those who were forced out on principle or corruption have the ability to speak their mind now.

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    Never in a million years would I look to Megyn Kelly for the voice of rationality. But it looks like being excommunicated from the inner circle does wonders for one’s ability to tell the truth.

    The division today was cynically stoked and nurtured for this current operation to effect this exact result. The bigger point Megyn doesn’t articulate is that this division is exactly the kind of ‘secondary goal’ desired if Trump prevails in the courts or through the Electoral College.

    Regardless of the outcome that division cuts deep enough to ensure an America permanently weakened, ripe for a complete remaking into a hellish place. There is a full-court press on right now across the world to attack sovereignty of important states whose populations are dissident to The Davos Crowd’s Great Reset — notably the U.K., the U.S., Poland and Russia.

    Trump’s fight is their fight. His supporters and sovereigntists of all stripes are to be ritualistically humiliated by every headline, every utterance, every Tweet and every newscast between now and when the State Legislatures meet to select slates of Electors in December.

    The media will never concede they were wrong, will never report on anything fairly. They are in on the grift. Looking for them to admit anything is a waste of energy and time. Simply turn them off and become #Ungovernable.

    This is a psychological war now, designed to rob you of your reason and sap your willingness to fight by creating an overwhelming picture of Trump as the bad guy, Quixotically clinging to power we’re being told he’s already lost.

    But Megyn Kelly is right in telling people that there will be no reconciliation without acceptance. And since, at its core, leftism is a religion without the ability to forgive, since it is vehemently anti-Christian, there will be no acceptance back into the fold, including for her.

    It will be marginalization, retribution and continued vitriol of all Trump supporters and anyone not down with being reset into the grand vision of the New Soviet Green Man.

    They haven’t even secured the presidency yet and BLM/Antifa are already turning on white Biden supporters who are urging peace.

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    Nothing shields you from the mob once the mob gets going. I hope this person’s conscience is clean that he did his part to stop Orange Man Bad because once this is over, that’s all he’ll have left.

    Klaus Schwab told you this. You’ll Own Nothing and be Happy.

    Or else.

    The choice was struggle sessions or Trump rallies. I told you months ago you would be faced with the Hobson’s Choice of accepting their dystopic future or having your house burned down.

    Millions chose poorly last week and they will have massive buyer’s remorse as the plans are rolled out and they are sacrificed.

    Don’t believe me? Ask Ukrainians if they are better off six years after their color revolution or not? That one was successful.

    Act III of a color revolution is the most dangerous. It is the one where chaos can reign for months and the balance tipped by the slimmest of margins. But in the end it always comes down to the willingness of the people to decide their future.

    Because taking down the U.S. is such a monumental undertaking they had to create a problem global in scale, COVID-19.

    The U.S. has everything against it in this situation. The oligarchy and its quislings are firmly in command of the narrative. There are real, deep divisions to keep people fighting each other while the oligarchs proceed with their plans.

    Trump is trying to marshal a counter-revolution on the ground and in the courts. The evidence will be presented. Apparatchiks will ignore their orders. Protests will miraculously spring up in all the right places.

    The media will misrepresent everything.

    It will be up to us to decide which way the State Legislatures decide whose electors go to Washington D.C. next month by putting real pressure on them to act on their conscience and the evidence. That’s the law.

    But the menace of it is real and it won’t go away regardless of the outcome of the election. It no longer lurks in the shadows. It slouches towards Washington waiting to be reborn.

    *  *  *

    Join my Patreon if you want to navigate the Great Reset. Install the Brave Browser to build a better internet.

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  • "Catastrophic Collisions" – NASA Warns About New 5G Satellite Constellation
    "Catastrophic Collisions" – NASA Warns About New 5G Satellite Constellation

    Tyler Durden

    Wed, 11/11/2020 – 23:20

    Several private companies are planning to launch large, low-Earth-orbit (LEO) satellite constellations. NASA, who generally doesn’t comment on these types of developments, recently published a stark warning for AST & Science, which intends to launch a massive constellation of hundreds of large 5G satellites. 

    NASA engineer Samantha Fonder expressed concern about AST’s 5G mega constellation of satellites in a recently penned letter to FCC’s Marleen Dortch, about how the space agency worries its assets in orbit could experience a “catastrophic collision,” reported Ars Technica. 

    “NASA submits this letter during the public comment period for the purpose of providing a better understanding of NASA’s concerns with respect to its assets on-orbit, to further mitigate the risks of collisions for the mutual benefit of all involved,” Fonder wrote. 

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    Since AST’s satellites are large, she noted that they could cause thousands of probable accidents every year. AST insists it’s committed to resolving the issues with NASA.

    Aside from the satellites’ size, Fonder fears that AST’s inexperience could result in a high rate of satellites failing to achieve orbit.  

    Fonder added, “for the completed constellation of 243 satellites, one can expect 1,500 mitigation actions per year and perhaps 15,000 planning activities. This would equate to four maneuvers and 40 active planning activities on any given day.” 

    At the end of the letter, she requests the FCC, given the size of AST’s satellites and inexperience, along with the heightened probabilities that collision could be seen as LEO has been transformed into a crowded mess of satellites and space debris, that “AST should consider alternative orbit regimes for this constellation.” 

    Besides Fonder’s warning, the European Space Agency (ESA) also warned about thousands of new satellites and dangerous space debris that have jammed up Earth’s orbit. 

    While it becomes clear space debris is becoming a significant issue, ESA recently awarded the Swiss startup company Clearpace, a $117 million contract, to remove space debris from orbit. Though the program to remove space junk won’t start until 2025. 

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    Judging by ESA’s animation above of satellites and space junk, collisions are bound to happen… 

  • We Honor Veterans By Preventing Homelessness, Suicide
    We Honor Veterans By Preventing Homelessness, Suicide

    Tyler Durden

    Wed, 11/11/2020 – 23:00

    Authored by Brendan Cushing-Daniels & Christopher R. Fee via RealClearPolitics.com,

    We hope the incoming administration makes honoring our veterans a priority, not just today but all year long. President Dwight D. Eisenhower created Veterans Day to show the same commitment to veterans that he showed our troops during World War II.

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    Our veterans are our noblest citizens. Yet too many who helped preserve our freedoms wind up homeless, or even more tragically, take their own lives.

    Two years ago, John Scott Hannon, a decorated veteran of 23 years and a former top-ranked Navy SEAL platoon commander, died by his own hand as a result of his invisible wounds of war. We wish we could say this was an isolated case, but the fact is that among those who have served, suicide is more lethal than the battlefield.

    In the last 14 years, nearly 18,000 Americans died while on active duty in the military. During that period, 73,000 veterans took their own lives. Moreover, veterans who were homeless at any point in their lives were 75% more likely to die by suicide compared to other veterans. More than two-thirds of the veterans who took their own lives had no recent contact with the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs (the VA). That fraction is certainly much higher for veterans experiencing homelessness.

    Suicide prevention is the top clinical priority of the VA, which has requested an additional $76 million for suicide prevention in the coming year. Its efforts, and those of the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development, are reducing suicide and improving housing stability.

    In 2018, the VA introduced universal screening for suicide risk in all primary-care settings, evaluating nearly 4 million veterans in the first two years. Veterans, particularly those experiencing homelessness, are unlikely to engage in therapies requiring regular visits, so the VA has pioneered a 20- to 40-minute intervention program to develop coping strategies and reduce access to potential suicide methods like firearms and drugs.

    Early results are promising. In the six months following the intervention, veterans are 45% less likely to attempt suicide, compared to veterans who are simply referred to follow-up care. Over the past four years, studies show that homeless veterans who used at least one homeless program were 20% less likely than other homeless veterans to die of suicide.

    Homelessness is a key predictor of veteran suicide, but the good news is that programs are working. Between 2010 and 2017, 600,000 veterans and their families have been housed or prevented from becoming homeless.  

    Although we applaud these efforts, there is much work left to be done, and every single day, not just on Veterans Day.

    The Commander John Scott Hannon Veterans Mental Health Care Improvement Act of 2019 sits on the president’s desk awaiting his signature. Among other things, this legislation directs the VA to create a job description specific to this problem for mental health counselors, expands funding for suicide prevention, and increases access to cognitive behavioral therapy. 

    Commander Hannon was born to a life of service to country to parents serving in the diplomatic corps. His own, ultimately fatal, invisible wounds of war animated his fight for mental health services for all veterans. Veterans Day is an appropriate time for us to reflect on the sacrifices of all service members and for us to recommit to providing veterans the care they deserve when they come home.

    In Ike’s words, “Let us solemnly remember the sacrifices of all those who fought so valiantly, on the seas, in the air, and on foreign shores, to preserve our heritage of freedom.” But on that day and every other day, let Americans “pay appropriate homage” to our veterans by providing them with the housing, resources, and support systems they need and deserve. 

    Signing the act won’t accomplish all of that, but it would be a good faith gesture, and a tiny step in the right direction.

  • "A Vaccine For The Rich" – Pfizer's COVID-19 Jab Almost Impossible To Distribute In Poorer Countries
    "A Vaccine For The Rich" – Pfizer's COVID-19 Jab Almost Impossible To Distribute In Poorer Countries

    Tyler Durden

    Wed, 11/11/2020 – 22:40

    A logistical “roadmap” from Shanghai Fosun Pharmaceutical has been released showing the staggering logistical feats required to transport and store the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine, which has just been christened by Bloomberg as “the vaccine of the rich”.

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    Offering some more insight into details that have been the subject of much speculation on Wall Street, Bloomberg reported on this “complex and costly” private network that companies are building to help distribute vaccines like Pfizer’s mRNA vaccine (a technology that’s also being used by another leading candidate, Moderna), that is, once it has finally been approved.

    Countries that don’t already have these networks will need to build them from scratch if they wish to substantially reduce the supply bottleneck, which would be “a herculean task”.

    That means that countries will need to build from scratch the deep-freeze production, storage and transportation networks needed for the vaccine to survive. This massive investment and coordination required all but guarantees that only rich nations will manage to dial up access, with the wealthy first in line to receive their doses.

    “Its production is costly, its component is unstable, it also requires cold-chain transportation and has a short shelf life,” said Ding Sheng, director of the Beijing-based Global Health Drug Discovery Institute, which has received funding from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation.

    The WHO and Bill Gates have invested plenty of time on a PR campaign warning that access to the vaccine must be made ‘universal’ – that is, extended to all of earth’s 7.7 billion people – or humanity won’t manage to eradicate COVID-19.  Together, they’ve backed a project called ‘Covax’ which aims to raise $18 billion to pay for vaccines for poorer countries.

    But even once they’ve been paid for, the task remains: how can we physically ship and store them in such vast quantities?

    The massive expense of the infrastructure investment means many of these poorer countries are now faced with a difficult choice: invest in the supply network, even before the vaccines have been approved, and take a risk should unforeseen complications arise, or wait to see how everything pans out for the developed world, sacrificing valuable time. Many of these economies could simply wait longer until more conventional vaccines, using other technologies, such as Russia’s adenovirus-vector vaccine, are available. Generally speaking, mRNA vaccines are a new class of vaccines, which is why some are apprehensive about the long-term side effects, which can’t be reliably studied.

    “If there is a protein-based vaccine that could achieve the same effect as an mRNA vaccine does and there’s the need to vaccinate billions of people every year, I’d go for the protein-based shots in the long run,” Ding said.

    Countries like India are facing particular difficulties given that shipping regular consumer goods remains a difficult, even treacherous, process across much of the country’s hinterland. Health-care experts in the country have already dismissed sub-zero storage as completely unworkable – “just forget it, one said.”

    Many working in the country’s public health and the pharmaceutical industry have already voiced concern that India lacks the necessary capacity and capability to deliver a vaccine across its vast rural hinterland and population of over 1.3 billion people at the breakneck speed now expected.

    “Most of these vaccines need minus 70 degrees, which we just can’t do in India, just forget it,” said T. Sundararaman, a New Delhi-based global coordinator of the People’s Health Movement, an organization that brings together local activists, academics and civil society groups working on public health.

    “Our current cold chains are not able to cope with some districts’ need for measles vaccines, and that’s only for children below the age of 3,” he said. “That’s a really trivial number of people compared to the numbers that will need a Covid-19 vaccine.”

    When asked at a Tuesday briefing if India’s government would look to buy any of the Pfizer vaccine, Rajesh Bhushan, the secretary at the health ministry, said New Delhi is in talks with all vaccine manufacturers. He added that India was in a position to “augment and strengthen” its existing cold-chain capacity, but declined to release any purchase details immediately.

    So, judging by the way things are going…

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    …it looks like the world is headed for a tiered system: one vaccine for the wealthy, and one another for the poor.

  • Get Ready For Chaos Regardless Of Who Ends Up In The White House
    Get Ready For Chaos Regardless Of Who Ends Up In The White House

    Tyler Durden

    Wed, 11/11/2020 – 22:20

    Authored by Brandon Smith via Alt-Market.us,

    In July of this year in my article ‘Election 2020: The Worst Case Scenario Is The Most Likely One’, after I outlined the strange factors surrounding Biden and Trump, I stated that:

    “These factors and more lead me to predict that Election 2020 will be a contested election which ends with Trump staying in office but accused of usurping the democratic process. This outcome is the worst possible outcome and also the most advantageous for the globalist establishment.”

    I also noted the predictive programming campaign by the media and members of the Council On Foreign Relations like Max Boot to acclimated the public to the idea of a contested election while also “wargaming” (planning) that exact outcome. I stated:

    “…Boot is back again, this time writing about how he thinks Donald Trump will try to “hijack” the presidency in 2020.

    In an article for the Washington post titled ‘What If Trump Loses But Insists He Won’, Boot outlines a scenario that was “war gamed” by a group called the Transition Integrity Project. The group played out a scenario in which there is a razor thin victory for Joe Biden, followed by actions by Trump to keep control of the presidency through lies and legal wrangling. The group also predicted civil unrest leading to potential “civil war” as the fight over the White House expands.

    This article is, I believe, an attempt at predictive programming by the establishment. They are TELLING US exactly what is about to happen. A contested election, civil war, martial law, economic collapse and the US will be destroyed from within.”

    So far it appears my prediction was correct. As I write this the Trump Administration is filing suit in Pennsylvania over suspicious ballot actions including blocking Republican observers from watching the vote count. The fact that PA is allowing mail-in votes to be counted even though they are postmarked well after the cut-off date will also come into question. Evidence of ballot fraud is popping up in multiple swing states; it’s starting to look like Trump might remain in office after all.

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    If ANY of the reports of fraud are verified by the courts then the election situation changes completely. Millions of Americans will lose faith in the process and the election itself would be invalidated. Even if the uncovered fraud is not proven to have effectively shifted the vote in favor of Biden, no conservative will accept Biden as president, and the Trump Administration will have a perfect rationale for refusing to concede the White House.

    Many Americans do not seem to understand the dynamic at play here. They think “winning” the vote count means an automatic Biden presidency, but this is not actually the case. Trump is already in possession of the White House – If he will not leave because of possible election tampering, then who is going to remove him? Perhaps one of the alphabet agencies, but on whose orders or authority? The military won’t remove him as the majority of them are conservative, and certainly not the Democrats as they have no ability to project power. Trump stays in because the only people that could possibly pressure him to leave (conservatives) will probably not do so.

    Another scenario could involve “activist” state electors. Voters within the electoral college do not necessarily have to vote according to the popular vote within their respective states. Some states have laws that bind electors, but many do not, including Pennsylvania, Georgia, Arizona, and Minnesota. The states that do have laws have little ability to enforce them, and activist electors can only be slapped with a misdemeanor. Basically, there is nothing anyone can do to stop the electoral college from voting for Trump instead of Biden.

    If electors in swing states congregate in December to cast their votes and decide to cast for Trump instead of Biden because they suspect ballot fraud, this would be perfectly legal, and again, Trump stays in office.

    Then there is the issue of congress finalizing the election results. Neither party currently holds a 218 seat majority in congress, and if one half of representatives refuse to validate the election then challenges to the results will arise. Once again there is a problem of legitimacy going forward for Joe Biden.

    I realize that these factors and many more are giving conservatives continued hope of pulling out an election “victory”. However, I want readers to set aside the concept of “winning” for a moment and consider the bigger picture.

    I was able to predict the outcome of the 2020 election (so far) because I based my analysis on what would be the most advantageous result for the globalist establishment.

    Meaning, even if Trump stays in the Oval Office, the globalists have much to gain.

    First, lets not be naive about the situation – Trump’s cabinet is LOADED with globalists from the Council on Foreign Relations as well as numerous banking elites. If they want to steer the election response from Trump’s side, they easily can. Trump is contesting the election because he is being advised to do so.

    Second, the mainstream media and the Biden campaign are already preemptively declaring Biden the winner. This sets the stage for a dangerous dynamic; consider what would happen if leftists go into December/January under the assumption that they have the presidency in the bag, when suddenly it is all snatched away from them? This narrative creates the ultimate rage scenario for the political left; they will consider Trump a usurper of the presidency and from that point on they will rationalize any and all mob violence. This civil unrest will be blamed entirely on Trump and conservatives.

    Third, a mass unrest event triggers a demand for law and order. There are two ways this can be achieved: A constitutional way and an unconstitutional way. The elites in Trump’s cabinet will push for the unconstitutional response, meaning they will push for martial law. Martial law will inevitably lead to numerous violations of the Bill of Rights, which are UNACCEPTABLE under ANY circumstances.

    Not only this, but what would happen if conservatives, normally staunch defenders of individual rights, suddenly decide it’s okay to trample those rights in the name of “defeating the political left”? We become the greatest hypocrites of the age, we lose the moral high ground in the long term and no one will listen to us when we argue for liberty in the future. The greatest defenders of freedom become freedom’s greatest destroyers. Again, the globalists benefit.

    Anyone who tells you martial law is “the lesser evil” and that we have no other choice has an agenda they are not being honest about.

    Fourth, with Trump still in office the establishment’s “great reset” agenda will continue using conservatives as the scapegoats of the economic collapse they created. Beyond that, the contested election can be used as further excuse for economic instability. The central banks which have used endless stimulus measures to inflate the massive “Everything Bubble” ever since 2008 need to divert blame for the bubble’s eventual implosion, and now they have numerous distractions that will allow them to do just that.

    Fifth, even if millions of Americans view Trump’s actions as justified and the election results as rigged, much of the rest of the world will treat Trump and conservatives as pariahs. The situation becomes much worse if conservatives support martial law. The narrative will be that America is under illegitimate and tyrannical rule, and that international intervention may be required. At the very least, there will be global economic penalties, including the loss of the dollar’s world reserve status which will lead to a flood of dollars returning to the US from overseas and hyperinflation in prices.

    Now don’t get me wrong, a Biden presidency will lead to immediate and violent repercussions as well, but conservatives need to wake up to the reality that a Trump presidency is not an answer to any of their problems or fears. It’s a Catch-22 situation.

    Under Biden, expect the economic crash to speed up dramatically. Biden will initiate Level 4 lockdowns nationwide within weeks of becoming president and this will cause the destruction of the small business sector, which is already barely hanging on for dear life. The globalists will have to bring down the economy faster under Biden so that they can claim the crash is a residual effect of the Trump Administration. If they wait too long, the blame will fall on Biden and by extension the globalists.

    Level 4 lockdowns would also help prevent conservatives from relocating to more friendly states and regions. And, they would help prevent conservatives from congregating in large groups and organizing resistance to leftist policies.

    Censorship of conservative voices and platforms will have to accelerate under Biden as well, because the more conservatives are able to share information in real time, the more galvanized they will become and the more confident they will be in refusing to submit to pandemic restrictions (among other things). I believe that web service providers will start directly censoring conservative websites that use their servers. Sites like mine will be removed from the web entirely, or filtered out completely by search algorithms.

    Finally, under Biden there will be an immediate call for draconian gun control measures and perhaps even gun confiscation. This will be done by executive order, and it is likely that Red Flag laws will be used. A leftist or globalist agenda cannot progress while conservatives are armed. It is impossible. No one will go along with pandemic restrictions in conservative leaning states. No one will agree to carbon controls. No one will adopt new and insane hate speech laws designed by social justice lunatics.

    A Biden presidency would galvanize and unify conservative groups more than anything in recent history. Eventually, conservatives will revolt (including many in the military and law enforcement) and there will be nothing leftists or globalists can do about it. Disarmament would have to happen quickly.

    This is why I believe that Trump staying in office is a better model for the globalists. Tricking conservatives into jubilantly supporting martial law measures and bringing in tyranny under their own banner is a better tactic than creating a direct confrontation between conservatives and globalists through Biden’s lockdowns.

    As mentioned above, though, there is a solution. Welcome a Trump presidency if fraud is discovered but refuse to support martial law. Instead, conservatives can protect their own towns and counties by organizing community security for themselves. There is no need for the military to take on domestic security concerns. Rather, conservatives must react as many did in Idaho during the BLM riots.

    When BLM and Antifa tried to bus hundreds of protesters into rural parts of the Northwest, conservative groups fielded hundreds of armed members of the community to maintain security. BLM and Antifa activists remained relatively peaceful and quiet, there was no looting and no one was hurt (as opposed to numerous other cities). It was the best possible outcome.

    This model must be enacted all over the country, and Americans must take their security into their own hands. I would even suggest we start using the “M word” again: Militia.

    Conservatives states and counties should start seriously considering the formation of community militias, because government cannot be trusted to remain benevolent or just when it is given the ultimate power of martial law. In the event of a Biden presidency, militias will also be necessary as a deterrent to totalitarian enforcement of federal pandemic lockdowns. If leftists want to destroy their own local economies through unnecessary lockdowns, let them. Conservatives don’t need to follow the lemmings off that cliff.

    Constitutionally, militias are supposed to be verified by state governments. This might not be possible. If not, then communities should form militias anyway; just don’t call it an official or “organized” militia. If state governments try to sabotage such measures then they should be bypassed and ignored. We don’t need them in order to provide security for ourselves.

    If this solution is not taken seriously and conservatives do not take matters into their own hands, I foresee catastrophe. Either we will be lured into giving credence to liberty crushing martial law, or, we will be at the mercy of Biden’s medical tyranny. The future depends on us…

    *  *  *

    If you would like to support the work that Alt-Market does while also receiving content on advanced tactics for defeating the globalist agenda, subscribe to our exclusive newsletter The Wild Bunch Dispatch.  Learn more about it HERE.

     

  • $61 Million Of Meth Seized At Texas Border Crossings Amid Cartel Crime Wave 
    $61 Million Of Meth Seized At Texas Border Crossings Amid Cartel Crime Wave 

    Tyler Durden

    Wed, 11/11/2020 – 22:00

    Methamphetamine is flooding across the Mexico-US border at an all-time high, and U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) officers have ramped up patrols at border crossings to disrupt the illegal drug trade made possible by Mexican drug cartels.  

    CBP released a statement on Nov. 3 detailing how the Colombia-Solidarity Bridge and World Trade Bridge border crossings recently seized, in two separate events, about $61 million worth of meth. 

    “The trafficking and production of methamphetamine has increased substantially over the past year, causing drug traffickers to become more creative in their methods of smuggling their product into America,” said Acting Port Director Andrew Douglas, Laredo Port of Entry.

    The packages contained nearly 3,000 pounds of meth were intended to supply multiple U.S. cities along the ‘meth superhighway‘. CBP explains, in both seizures, how officers confiscated the illegal drugs. 

    On Tuesday, Oct. 27, the first enforcement action occurred at the Colombia-Solidarity Bridge when CBP officers assigned to the cargo facility encountered a tractor hauling an empty trailer from Mexico. The 2006 Freightliner tractor and shipment were referred for a canine and non-intrusive imaging system inspection, resulting in the discovery of 618 packages containing 1988.12 pounds of alleged methamphetamine discovered within the trailer. The narcotics have an estimated street value of $39,762,165. -CBP

    On Wednesday, Oct. 28, at the World Trade Bridge, the second seizure occurred when CBP officers assigned to the cargo facility encountered a tractor hauling a shipment of frozen vegetables arriving from Mexico. The 1999 Freightliner tractor and shipment were referred for a canine and non-intrusive imaging system inspection, resulting in the discovery of 352 packages containing 1049.84 pounds of alleged methamphetamine discovered within the trailer. The narcotics have an estimated street value of $20,996,610. -CBP

    On Nov. 8, CBP tweeted two pictures, showing the bricks of meth, indicating the narcotics have an estimated street value of $60,758,775.

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    According to a Fox News report from early September, CBP meth seizures have so far doubled over last year as drug cartels ramp up production and flood the U.S. with supply. 

    Officers say in all, the total volume of meth seized is almost double than last year, with still a couple of months left to go in the fiscal year. The volume of meth seized has been increasing annually for several years. In the fiscal year 2019, the Office of Field Operations seized some 68,585 points of meth nationwide, compared to 118,153 pounds this year. -Fox News

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    As meth floods into the US, there’s some hope, as shown by the CBP’s latest meth seizures, that the newly erected border wall is possibly working. 

  • The Dystopic Great Reset & The Fight Back: Population Reduction And Hope For The Children Of Men
    The Dystopic Great Reset & The Fight Back: Population Reduction And Hope For The Children Of Men

    Tyler Durden

    Wed, 11/11/2020 – 21:40

    Authored by Joaquin Flores via The Strategic Culture Foundation,

    Genesis 11:5 – And the Lord came down to see the city and the tower, which the children of men builded.

    The Great Reset, the 4th Industrial Revolution, the 4th Turning, the Great Awakening, and Artificial Intelligence. These are the real themes that are shaping the socio-political, cultural, and ideological landscape of our lives in 2020.

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    The push for lockdown and quarantine towards a Great Reset is increasingly understood by critics as program of mass enslavement and collective punishment, population reduction, presented within the trappings progressive talking points. In our last piece on the Great Reset, ‘Whose Great Reset? The Fight for Our Future – Technocracy vs. the Republic’, we confronted the Orwellian nature of the term itself, showing that the ostensibly technocratic new proposal was being made in a way that appears to short-cut the decision making processes of sovereign states as well as democratic processes within republics.

    In the eternal words of the Irish author, Oscar Wilde, ‘Life imitates art far more than art imitates life’.

    “That we live in a time where the plans of the elite are more openly and more brazenly spelled out, in fiction, in public mythology, in culture, and are manufactured in a way entirely out of the hands of the vast majority of people whose lives will be forever changed, likely for the worse, is hands-down the real catastrophe of our time.”

    There is a strange, if little known fact about the lived lives of prisoners. Now that humanity faces the real daunting probability of a lockdown regime on the flimsy pretext of a virus with a 99.9% survival rate, we need to understand something about prisoners and the Great Awakening. The Great Awakening is the product of how actually imprisoned people respond to imprisonment. Just as a person deprived of vision develops an outstanding sense of smell and hearing, a person deprived of physical freedom develops a profound and reified spiritual or supernatural freedom, which is the awakening. In a strange twist of fate, the more that people are locked down, the more they awaken.

    We are caught between two seeming contradictions which in fact reconcile each other. On the one hand we understand that everything happens for a reason and that justice always prevails in the end, and on the other hand we know that the possible destiny that we can have only comes at the cost of tremendous struggle, self-discipline, moral fortitude, and sacrifice. This much is the mindset of the awakened, of the political soldier, in the course of the fight against the Great Awakening and within the age of the 4th Turning.

    Censoring Facts, Reifying Fiction

    Last month, the father of UK PM Boris Johnson, Stanley Johnson, was caught at a second time in public, not wearing a mask. Was he unaware that there is a highly contagious pandemic, one which affects his age group in particular? Does he not know what is going on in the UK and around the world?

    Or does he know something that the rest of us do not? The folly that it may be, it came to be learned that it was Stanley Johnson who wrote the dystopian fiction novel, The Virus, one that describes much of what we are living through today. He is also the author of World Population and the United Nations: Challenge and Response, a non-fiction primer on the subject described in its title. In The Virus,

    In both the narrative arc of the novel, and in his own introduction, Stanley Johnson lays out the necessity of a virus in the eyes of an insidious elite to curb population growth. This coincidence with the actual Agenda 201/2030 of the UN on population control, and the commitment of vaccine advocate and WHO beneficiary Bill Gates to decrease world population, is absolutely disconcerting and raises questions about further coincidences that have since arisen. This of course includes the very position that Boris Johnson holds today in managing the real-life version of the virus in Britain today.

    But is this a mere matter of coincidence, or not? That question has become the subject of a vigorous debate, with one side of the debate arguing that it is not a coincidence being tremendously censored by social media and effectively barred from giving their side, and the other side being the only voice one hears and sees across social and legacy media.

    The fact of this censorship over this question alone appears to lend credence to those being censored, as is often the unintended consequence of censorship, and perhaps the last hope of man.

    This is an astonishing example of life imitating art, and now with an increasing public awareness on the relationship between vaccines and infertility, we arrive at the predicate to the film ‘Children of Men’.

    Children of Men depicts a world in global chaos, war, strife, open street battles between members of quasi-governmental forces and various radical and religious cults, a jihadist military push through the streets of Paris, a paramilitary junta, the effects of mass migration, open air prisons, and worse. This has taken hold of most of Europe and presumably the world. This breakdown seems to have been the product of a global pandemic of infertility of an unknown origin. A film from 2008, anyone seeing the film today would instantly recognize the scenes as approximating real-life footage seen on the news in the world of 2020.

    The global infertility crisis creates a pervasive sense of insecurity, the impossibility of a stock market, and a conscious sense of impending doom and nihilist response on the part of elites.

    Taken together with Johnson’s ‘The Virus’, we can make a rather educated guess how such an outcome would manifest in a reality where life is imitating art: the virus or the vaccine created to the cure the virus, in fact lends towards infertility.

    It isn’t difficult to make such a guess, for the reason that, day by day, we see this dystopia becoming our everyday reality. It has become a matter of fact much more than of fiction.

    This compels us to approach, soberly, a reassessment of the concept of progress and where it leads

    The themes of a virus used as a predicate for both population control and a total social transformation, as we wrote about in ‘Whose Great Reset’, is one which mirrors the effects of war: both in terms of a mass casualty event and the need to ‘build back better’ after an apparent socio-economic collapse induced either by the calamity or by the government’s heavy-handed response.

    The Ideological State Apparatus of Technocratic Late Modernity

    For any number of years, social critics and public philosophers have raised concerns about the never-ending rise of the technocratic and futurist cult of late modernity. In many ways, this is caught up with the entire ideological project of our epoch, as a left-façade over a technocratic thought-police-state has been weaponized as what Louis Althusser had called the Ideological State Apparatus (ISA) in his landmark text of the same name, “Idéologie et appareils idéologiques d’État (Notes pour une recherche)“.

    That we live in a time where the plans of the elite are more openly and more brazenly spelled out, in fiction, in public mythology, in culture, and are manufactured in a way entirely out of the hands of the vast majority of people whose lives will be forever changed, likely for the worse, is hands-down the real catastrophe of our time.

    For generations, citizens were bombarded with futurist and technocratic motifs, where people were encouraged to naively project their own goodness onto the aims of political and corporate leaders, and scientists, even while this goodness had not been proven or established. The white lab-coat had become synonymous not only with trust, but with good intentions, and in that sense replaced the priest’s frock and black robe. This has cultivated a fertile soil for the likes of the Dr. Anthony Fauci and his ilk. This has culminated in the now open implementation of a so-called ‘4th Industrial Revolution’, a progressivist framework wrapped within the sociology of Marx but absent its humanism and emancipatory components – a ‘technocratic Marxism of elites’.

    The church of the progress myth has characterized much of the socio-political discourse of the last century. It has been one which has prepared several generations to accept the ‘challenges of change’ as a foregone necessity, towards the forging of a ‘brave new world’. It has served as the underlying assumption of the three most impactful ideologies of the 20th century: liberalism, fascism, and communism. So many apple-carts have been overturned along the way towards some combination of those ends, that today there are hundreds of millions of people who have never seen an apple cart with their own eyes.

    The Ideological State Apparatus has proscribed that criticisms of real-existing policies, plans, and commitments at the level of the UN, such as Agenda 21 and Agenda 2030, are censored across social media. The censorship itself gives credence to the ‘no coincidence’ side of the present debate, because the aim of global population reduction is not only explicit, but central. The established ideological apparatus proscribes that questioning the agenda is ‘science denial’, and ‘far-right conspiracy’, which are the double-plus ungood thought-crimes of our day. Central to the ideological apparatus were the cultural and political tropes which thematically dovetailed with cultural and supply-line globalization within the framework of first-world service-based economies, itself founded on the premise of planned-obsolescence.

    Population reduction however is an open goal of elites and their global governance institutions, and all that is contentious is the idea that the same governments that lied about the pretexts for the wars in Iraq and Vietnam, which then went on to murder millions of innocent people, may be lying again today about the methods they may use towards that end.

    And yet the past methods of population control such as warfare of the total war type, are unacceptable for elites today because of the specter of a nuclear holocaust that would also contaminate life for the elites themselves. Johnson is not only aware of this, but is explicit in his introduction to ‘The Virus’. We can also include that war will result in one side or the other being blamed at a time of great collusion between world powers, but yet a global pandemic seems to be an act of god – when in fact perhaps it is the outcome of man playing at god.

    The Ideological State Apparatus began to mutate in the late 1970’s, absorbing, deforming and then projecting back onto a society a mutated form of the very same protest radicalism which previously challenged the older Ideological State Apparatus. This new ISA was characterized by a new social morality, which delivered the now pervasive cult of political correctness. This ideological authoritarianism is one where slavery and self-harm are virtue signals, and this cultural shift towards public flagellation made possible the idea that lockdown, quarantine, and mask wearing was a sign of virtue more so than health. Without this change in the ISA over the past few decades, there could have never been a new normal.

    Conclusion

    As we have laid out the surface of the problem and begun to hint at the necessary course of solutions, in Part II we will dig deeper into the problem and flesh out what a just order would look like. In Part II, we will look at the origins of the social contract and the problem of free men versus the growing bureaucratic form, in history. This will set us up to look at why at the philosophical level our present elites have landed on misanthropy and genocide as a human population reduction program, as the best possible solution. Finally we will explain that while a 4th industrial revolution will come either way, that population reduction and slavery is not a necessary component of it. Rather, that it is up to free men to determine what that will look like and we will sketch out its actual functions.

  • Beijing Fears Esper's Exit Raises Risk Of Military Action & 'Accidents'
    Beijing Fears Esper's Exit Raises Risk Of Military Action & 'Accidents'

    Tyler Durden

    Wed, 11/11/2020 – 21:20

    In the wake of Defense Secretary Mark Esper’s firing early this week The South China Morning Post reports that leaders in Beijing are worried the sudden transition in the key Pentagon post dramatically raises the risk of accidental conflict, or at least signals a tougher stance out of an unpredictable US administration in its las 70 days in the White House.

    The regional publication also wrote that Christopher Miller as acting defense secretary has also raised serious concerns. One Beijing-based Chinese military analyst, Zhou Chenming, warned of “possible military adventures” related to Taiwan following Esper’s exit.

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    Via AFP

    And speaking of the new acting defense secretary, Zhou pointed out that “Miller has a strong special forces background. He joined the special forces and commanded it and specializes in surprise attacks and adventure operations.”

    Beijing has viewed Esper as a more stable influence over the Pentagon and in Trump’s cabinet – for example when last month the Pentagon agreed to hasten talks over a ‘crisis communications’ hotline with Chinese PLA officials. 

    Zhou further cited increased US naval “freedom of navigation” exercises near China, as well as increased joint US-Taiwan military drills which though long remaining ‘unofficial’ and undeclared, have now become for the first time “official” – as with this week’s drills involving US Marines.

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    Outgoing Secretary of Defense Mark T. Esper (left) and his successor, currently National Counterterrorism Center Director Christopher Miller, Source: DoD/AP

    An unnamed Chinese military source told SCMP further:

    “The PLA leadership wonders if someone in the American military is going to take a risk and cause accidental conflicts with the Chinese military, especially in the South China Sea, following Esper’s termination.”

    It does appear a sudden bolder US posture is making itself felt in the region, as Taiwanese media reports: “Taiwan’s Naval Command on Monday (Nov. 9) confirmed media reports that a contingent of U.S. Marines have arrived at the invitation of Taiwan’s military and will begin training Taiwanese troops for four weeks starting that day, marking the first public acknowledgment of U.S. Marines training in Taiwan in over 40 years.”

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    Meanwhile in Washington, some defense and intelligence officials have also expressed worry that Trump will be feeling more unconstrained and adventuresome when it comes to potentially provocative actions toward either China or Iran now that key officials in the Pentagon’s civilian leadership have left their posts.

  • Biden Picks Longtime Adviser And Obama Ebola Czar As Chief Of Staff
    Biden Picks Longtime Adviser And Obama Ebola Czar As Chief Of Staff

    Tyler Durden

    Wed, 11/11/2020 – 21:00

    Joe Biden has chosen his longtime adviser and former Obama admin Ebola ‘Czar’ Ron Klain to reprise his role as Chief of Staff, according to the Associated Press, which – if Biden is elected – means he’ll likely be swamped with pandemic-related challenges amid a divided Congress.

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    “His deep, varied experience and capacity to work with people all across the political spectrum is precisely what I need in a White House chief of staff as we confront this moment of crisis and bring our country together again,” Biden said in a Wednesday night statement.

    Klain, a Harvard Law graduate and former editor of the Harvard Law Review, previously served as Biden’s Chief of Staff from 2009-2011, as well as former Vice President Al Gore from 1995-1999 after having worked on the Clinton-Gore campaign in 1992. He was a law clerk for Supreme Court Justice Byron White in 1987 and 1988, and served as Chief Counsel to the Senate Judiciary Committee during Clarence Thomas’s Supreme Court nomination.

    Towards the end of the Clinton presidency and the lead-up to the 2000 election, Al Gore’s campaign chairman Tony Coelho forced Klain out after Gore loyalists felt he was too loyal to the Clintons, only to return to the Gore campaign the next year. He eventually served as General Counsel of Gore’s Recount Committee during the disputed 2000 election.

    Klain was also heavily involved in former Senator John Kerry’s failed 2004 bid for president.

  • "Nasdaq Whale" Beached: SoftBank's Attempt To Corner Tech Stocks Leads To $3.7BN Loss
    "Nasdaq Whale" Beached: SoftBank's Attempt To Corner Tech Stocks Leads To $3.7BN Loss

    Tyler Durden

    Wed, 11/11/2020 – 20:40

    The last time we looked at SoftBank’s performance in the public capital markets following the stunning news reported here first that it was the Japanese Conglomerate that had attempted to corner the Nasdaq using derivatives to create the biggest “gamma squeeze” on record which led to a massive late-August melt up in FAAMG names (and the broader tech sector), was two months ago when according to press reports, Masa Son sprawling investment vehicle had generated some $4 billion in profits at which point it had largely unwound many of the call spread trades in question.

    It turns out there was more.

    SoftBank today revealed that its secretive new unit, which was launched this summer to manipulate play the market in tech stocks and which is called “SB Northstar” had racked up trading losses of $3.7bn so far, a huge swing to the $4 billion profit that had been reported previously by established financial media. 

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    There was more: as we also first reported in “How SoftBank Made Billions Using The Biggest “Gamma Squeeze” In History”, SoftBank confirmed that Akshay Naheta, a 39-year-old former Deutsche Bank trader now based in Abu Dhabi, manages SB Northstar, which is registered in the Cayman Islands. This directly contradicts what SoftBank had said previously when they told the FT that Naheta was not formally in charge.

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    So what happened? Here is a brief walk down memory lane for those who missed the story:

    Back in August, SoftBank first revealed that it was planning to invest about $10bn in publicly traded tech stocks as a way to diversify a portfolio that is heavily reliant on shares in Chinese ecommerce group Alibaba.

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    However, despite telling the press that it had every intention of curbing its exposure after it had been named as a major market participant, by the end of September, Northstar had purchased nearly $17BN of shares in US tech companies, including $6.3BNn in Amazon, $2.2bn in Facebook, $1.8bn in Zoom and $1.4bn in Alphabet.

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    What is notable, is that while SoftBank initially disclosed that Northstar’s capital would be just $555MM when its unveiled the existence of the asset management unit in August (of which a third would come from Masa Son), Northstar has had far more capital at its disposal, because as the FT reports, “it uses loans of cash and publicly traded securities from SoftBank’s vast balance sheet to make investments in publicly listed stocks.”

    Indeed, on Wednesday, SoftBank revealed that at the end of September, Northstar managed roughly half, or $21BN of its $43BN cash pile, which has surged as the conglomerate executed a series of asset sales under pressure from activist investors such as Elliott Management.

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    In October, the unit also took out a margin loan of $6BN using SoftBank’s Alibaba shares as collateral.

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    More importantly, SoftBank also invested another $3.4bn in various equity derivatives in the form of call spreads which included long call options that were worth $4.7bn by the end of September, paired with “short call options” which SoftBank booked as $1.3bn in liabilities. Northstar also held short future contracts on stock indices, which were valued at minus $697 million.

    Where things went haywire is that while the short side of the bets was supposed to merely offset the premium of the upside bets, some of the bearish positions took on outsized losses as tech shares soared during the three months to September, resulting in SoftBank booking total derivatives losses of $2.7BN.

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    According to the FT, the total loss for Northstar ballooned to $3.7BN for the quarter, including $900MM in unrealised valuation losses on investments made by the unit.

    While it is possible that SoftBank recouped some of these losses after September, it is unlikely: citing sources, the Financial Times reports that Northstar switched to long call options after the tech rally in late summer to reduce its risk ahead of the US election, and are now going back into buying equities. Alas, that coincided with an especially turbulent period for the Nasdaq, which means that unless SoftBank timed its exit perfectly, it lost even more on theta and as implied vol fizzled while the Nasdaq drifted lower.

    Separately, in its latest investor presentation, SoftBank also stated how much impact these derivatives trades could have on pre-tax profits. A 30% rise in the stocks that Northstar went long on would have boosted its long call options by $14bn, but seen its short call options lose $5.7BN. Alternatively, a 30% fall in the stock price, would have hit its long call options by $4.3BN but boosted its short call options by $1.2BN, still resulting in sizable losses.

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    The not insubstantial P&L exposure is at odds with Son’s previous attempts to play down the risks posed by its foray into short-term trading of highly liquid stocks, saying the investments amount to only 7% of its total equity holdings worth $292Bn. Still, as noted above, it didn’t take much to flip what was a $4BN profit in early September in the portfolio to a $2.7BN loss by the end of the month, especially considering the modest drop in the Nasdaq over that time period.

    The result is that despite the much needed extra disclosure, the FT reports that analysts remain nervous, noting that Masa Son has an additional $50BN in cash burning a hole in his pocket following the disposal of SoftBank’s stakes in T-Mobile, Alibaba and its domestic telecoms arm.

    “SoftBank Group’s motivations are not clear,” Jefferies analyst Atul Goyal said. “For such a long-term investor as Mr Son, we don’t understand the attraction of short-term call spreads.”

    Son, meanwhile, has argued that his group cannot ignore the Big Tech if it wants to bet on the future of artificial intelligence. “The real frontrunner in the AI revolution is Gafa (Google, Apple, Facebook, and Amazon). We need to put them into our portfolio.”

    And he is doing it by buying call spreads on the FAAMGs which are trading just shy of their all time highs. Could Masa’s attempt to extract a little more upside from the tech sector mark the top? We don’t know but we will remind readers that the Japanese billionaire, who was nearly ruined when the dot com bubble burst, decided to rush into bitcoin at the very top in late 2017.

    As we reported in April of 2019, he ended up losing $130 million when he cashed out, a move  which according to the WSJ dented “his reputation as a patient and prophetic investor.” And the WeWork fiasco wasn’t even on the horizon… Ironically, if Son had only held on, he would be on the verge of breaking even with Bitcoin trading nearly at $16K and just shy of its all time high around $20K.

    Luckily for SoftBank investors there is now an adult in the room: as the WSJ reports, billionaire hedge fund investor Paul Singer is going over every Masa Son action with a microscope, which means that the possibility of even greater derivative losses is at least contained.

  • JPMorgan Is No Longer The World's Most Important Bank
    JPMorgan Is No Longer The World's Most Important Bank

    Tyler Durden

    Wed, 11/11/2020 – 20:20

    For the past three years, JPMorgan – the largest US bank by assets and market cap – was viewed by investors but more importantly by regulators, as the world’s most systematically important bank which however is as much as bragging right as a curse as it required Jamie Dimon’s bank to pay a higher capital burden due to its massive balance sheet (Chinese banks which are generally bigger have explicit state support and as such as broadly viewed as less risky).

    All that changed today when the Basel-based Financial Stability Board released its latest annual rankings of systematically important banks, which saw JPMorgan drop one notch, from the 4th bucket where it had been since 2017 and which carried a 2.5% additional capital buffer, to the 3rd bucket, which JPMorgan will shares with Citigroup and HSBC. The FSB’s SiFi ratings are based on a bank’s size, scope of cross-border business and connections to other firms, which are used to assess the risk of financial contagion.

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    JPMorgan benefited from a surge in revenue from stock and bond trading desks in the midst of the pandemic, which contributed to a surprise increase in third-quarter earnings. Its shares, which plunged with other bank stocks in March, recently rebounded but have still fallen 16% so far this year.

    Deutsche Bank, which once headed the list remains in the the 2nd, less risky bucket, which requires a 1.5% capital buffer. Wells Fargo and Goldman Sachs were also found to pose a lower risk to the financial system and were lowered one level to the lowest importance tier. At the same time, China Construction Bank rose one level in this year’s assessment of 30 firms, to the 2nd bucket.

    According to Bloomberg, the latest list uses information from before the Covid-19 pandemic, “which forced lenders to set aside tens of billions of dollars to cover potential credit losses, while authorities eased or delayed rules to help the industry respond.”

    Participation in the FSB list is hardly a bragging point: inclusion of a banks means more stringent capital demands and closer scrutiny of their risk management. FSB member authorities apply the following requirements to G-SIBs:

    Higher capital buffer: Since the November 2012 update, the G-SIBs have been allocated to buckets corresponding to higher capital buffers that they are required to hold by national authorities in accordance with international standards. The capital

    • buffer requirements for the G-SIBs identified in the annual update each November will apply to them as from January fourteen months later.5 The assignment of G-SIBs to the buckets, in the list published today, therefore determines the higher capital buffer requirements that will apply to each G-SIB from 1 January 2022.
    • Total Loss-Absorbing Capacity (TLAC): G-SIBs are required to meet the TLAC standard, alongside the regulatory capital requirements set out in the Basel III framework. The TLAC standard has begun being phased-in from 1 January 2019 for GSIBs  identified in the 2015 list that continued to be designated as G-SIBs.
    • Resolvability: These include group-wide resolution planning and regular resolvability assessments. The resolvability of each G-SIB is also reviewed in a high-level FSB Resolvability Assessment Process (RAP) by senior regulators within the firms’ Crisis Management Groups.
    • Higher supervisory expectations: These include supervisory expectations for risk management functions, risk data aggregation capabilities, risk governance and internal controls.

    The FSB panel, which recommends changes that national supervisors may implement, said shifts in the rankings reflect underlying changes in banks’ activity. The FSB is chaired by Fed vice chairman Randy Quarles, and includes representatives from authorities including the European Central Bank and Bank of England.

  • Biden 'Science' Advisor Calls For 4-6 Week Nationwide Lockdown To Avoid "COVID Hell"
    Biden 'Science' Advisor Calls For 4-6 Week Nationwide Lockdown To Avoid "COVID Hell"

    Tyler Durden

    Wed, 11/11/2020 – 20:00

    Meet the esteemed Dr. Michael Osterholm, who serves as director of the Center of Infectious Disease Research and Policy at the University of Minnesota, and is the latest “scientist” to join Joe Biden’s “special coronavirus transition advisory team.”

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    We have to do something, Osterholm argues, or – echoing the exact same words Dr. Fauci has fearmongered America with – the U.S. is headed for dark days before a vaccine becomes available.

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    The ‘casedemic’ does look terrifying.

    So what is his suggestion?

    Simple…

    A nationwide lockdown would drive the number of new cases and hospitalizations down to manageable levels while the world awaits a vaccine, Osterholm told Yahoo Finance on Wednesday.

    “We could pay for a package right now to cover all of the wages, lost wages for individual workers for losses to small companies to medium-sized companies or city, state, county governments. We could do all of that,” he said. “If we did that, then we could lockdown for four-to-six weeks.”

    So a massive bailout for state and local governments… oh and “we, the people” while we all suffer locked-down like a dementia-ridden presidential candidate in our basements through Thanksgiving and Christmas… with depression and suicide rates soaring ever higher?

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    As a reminder, we note that this is the same ‘scientist’ who co-wrote an op-ed with Minneapolis Federal Reserve President Neel Kashkari in which the two argued for more restrictive and uniform lockdowns across the nation.

    “The problem with the March-to-May lockdown was that it was not uniformly stringent across the country. For example, Minnesota deemed 78 percent of its workers essential,” they wrote in the New York Times.

    “To be effective, the lockdown has to be as comprehensive and strict as possible.”

    In other words – Obey! Or the economy gets it… Again!

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    There’s just one thing… the real ‘science’ – where actual experiments are undergone, results noted, and theses concluded – shows that lockdowns do not work…

    As we detailed earlier, in a surprising report out of JPMorgan, the bank finds no meaningful curve development differences between countries with and without strong curve intervention.

    This makes the bank question if existing public health intervention (i.e., lockdown/ stricter social distancing) should remain in place next year, and leads JPM to conclude that “public health policy should consider approaches biased towards economic/pubic mental health over the urge to close the curve in 2021.“

    To reach its “startling” conclusion, JPMorgan compared countries without lockdown, keeping the economy open under certain levels of social-distancing (Brazil, US, Sweden, Japan, Korea) to countries with strong curve intervention (UK, Germany, Italy, France, China, India) to see any meaningful differential in the curve development.

    This outcome suggest that COVID-19 follows a similar diffusion and development process of other infectious diseases with certain life cycles. Therefore, JPMorgan would argue that public health policy should consider a bit more biased approach on economic/pubic mental health over the aim to close the infection curve in 2021 as lockdowns could be costly to the economy.

    JPMorgan’s conclusion: “Keeping public activities open and tracing susceptible people leveraging technology looks to have better risk reward to us.”

    And just in case you shrug off JPMorgan’s ‘scientific’ findings, a recent study in The Lancet (yes, that scientific journal) found no correlation whatsoever between severity of lockdown and number of covid deaths. And they didn’t find any correlation between border closures and covid deaths either. And there was no correlation between mass testing and covid deaths either, for that matter. Basically, nothing that various world governments have done to combat covid seems to have had any effect whatsoever on the number of deaths.

    As Raul Ilargi Meijer noted, lockdowns are based on pretending we can make time stand still.

    That, like in one of those slick videos, everything else stops moving while you can walk around it. All Else Being Equal. It never is, not for 6-7 months. And that the first lockdown didn’t work, at least not for long, should perhaps be a lesson. Maybe you should look for answers elsewhere. Because the damage just goes on, economically, psychologically, physically.

    I’m not pretending I have the answers. I do have questions though. While the situation reminds me of Sisyphus, forced by Zeus to roll a boulder up a hill for eternity. Every time he nears the top of the hill, the boulder rolls back down.

    We need to find a balance between the threat of COVID19 and the threat of everything else, very much including those things that are caused by our approach to COVID.

    Presumably, Dr. Osterholm and the rest of his 11 wise men (and women and non-binary individuals) on Joe Biden’s COVID advisory team did not bother to look at the actual science… or actual facts… preferring instead to tie their careers to a Federal Reserve president (with no background in ‘sciencey’ stuff – but very well versed in massive government-funded bailouts) and the belief that if we just keep puking borrowed- or tax-payer-funded cash at people while shutting down the economy, then we will “keep the coronavirus pandemic in check and get the economy on track until a vaccine is approved and distributed.”

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    TL;DR: Ignore common sense and the real-world science experiment that just took place, shutdown the economy to get the economy back on track.

  • De Blasio's Daughter In Verbal Slip Up, Claims Biden "Was Able To Steal" Election
    De Blasio's Daughter In Verbal Slip Up, Claims Biden "Was Able To Steal" Election

    Tyler Durden

    Wed, 11/11/2020 – 19:40

    Authored by Paul Joseph Watson via Summit News,

    Mayor De Blasio’s daughter was caught in an embarrassing on camera verbal slip up when she told an interviewer that Joe Biden “was able to steal” the election.

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    There were in fact two major gaffes, with Chiara de Blasio initially telling the interviewer how happy she was that “now we have the first black Asian female president in office elected,” referring to Kamala Harris.

    Harris would of course become Vice President if Biden’s win is certified, although many have suggested that she could soon find herself in the Oval Office given Biden’s declining cognitive abilities.

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    De Blasio followed up by saying that Biden stole the election, before correcting herself.

    “Joe Biden was able to steal…steal no, was able to win,” she said before apologizing.

    Given what happened, maybe de Blasio was right the first time.

    The 25-year-old has become a prominent left-wing activist and she was arrested back in May during a George Floyd protest.

    *  *  *

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  • JPMorgan Finds No Benefits From COVID Lockdowns
    JPMorgan Finds No Benefits From COVID Lockdowns

    Tyler Durden

    Wed, 11/11/2020 – 19:35

    While the latest vaccine progress news out of Pfizer was welcome by the market (and its CEO who sold over 60% of his PFE stock on the day of the announcement) in a week where global infection resurgence continued with cases jumping 8% W/W last week (537k vs. 309k in Aug-Oct) and EU/ UK re-imposed lockdowns, considering that approximately 60% of population will need to be covered by a vaccine, near term pressure on infection curve/ hospital capacity, growing mortality tally, and stricter public
    health policies to pull back secondary infection rate (or R0) below 1 will likely persist for the foreseeable future.

    However, in a surprising report out of JPMorgan, the bank finds no meaningful curve development differences between countries with and without strong curve intervention. This makes the bank question if existing public health intervention (i.e., lockdown/ stricter social distancing) should remain in place next year, and leads JPM to conclude that “public health policy should consider approaches biased towards economic/pubic mental health over the urge to close the curve in 2021.“

    To reach its “startling” conclusion, JPMorgan compared countries without lockdown, keeping the economy open under certain levels of social-distancing (Brazil, US, Sweden, Japan, Korea) to countries with strong curve intervention (UK, Germany, Italy, France, China, India) to see any meaningful differential in the curve development.

    Here is what the largest US bank found in its comparison between countries with and without strict social distancing measures and lockdowns:

    • Infection scale/speed: Confirmed cases scale: Infection scale is smaller for countries with strict control measures but no meaningful gap with countries without stricter controls (confirmed out of total population: 0.9% vs. 1.2%). Infection speed: Countries with strict control measures have a shorter period to arrive at first peak (78 days vs. 106 days), implying stricter social distancing measures or lockdowns could lead to faster peak infection. Tests performed: countries with stricter measures have performed a greater scale of tests, at 37% of the total population vs. 32% for those with certain levels of social distancing but no full lockdowns. Also in Brazil and India with relatively relaxed social distancing measures on COVID-19, daily new infections have been trending down and this perhaps is due to the natural life cycle of infectious disease thus COVID-19 could have a similar life span.

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    • Mortality comparison: In an unexpected twist, the mortality rate (= death/ confirmed) was higher for countries with stricter control measures, at 2.6% vs. 2.0% for those without. Death per million people: lower for countries with stricter control measures (240 deaths per 1mn people vs. 273 deaths per mn) compared to those without strict control measures.

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    • Antibody: Antibody level: the average antibody levels are similar for both groups of countries. Average 3.6% of participants were found to have antibodies in countries with strict control measures, vs. 3.0% in countries without. However the gap in between is not meaningfully large. Time to arrive at 80% recovery rate (= recovered/ confirmed): Days to arrive at 80% recovery rate is shorter for countries with stricter control measures than countries without (119 days vs. 129 days).

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    Paradoxically, the data show that there exists some degree of i) shorter period to peak infection, ii) smaller scale of death per million and iii) slightly larger scale of antibody level found in countries with stricter social distancing measures and lockdowns. However JPMorgan does not see a large meaningful difference between two groups.

    This outcome suggest that COVID-19 follows a similar diffusion and development process of other infectious diseases with certain life cycles. Therefore, JPMorgan would argue that public health policy should consider a bit more biased approach on economic/pubic mental health over the aim to close the infection curve in 2021 as lockdowns could be costly to the economy.

    JPMorgan’s conclusion: “Keeping public activities open and tracing susceptible people leveraging technology looks to have better risk reward to us.”

    Of course, if this had been known in early March when the establishment rushed to close the economy resulting in the biggest economic and financial crisis since the Great Depression, the consequences – for both the US economy and the outcome of the election where Trump’s handling of the covid crisis became the front and center issue – would have been profound.

  • Once "Immune" To The Pandemic, The Financial Industry Is About To Face A Wave Of Layoffs
    Once "Immune" To The Pandemic, The Financial Industry Is About To Face A Wave Of Layoffs

    Tyler Durden

    Wed, 11/11/2020 – 19:20

    We covered  when Wells Fargo laid off 700 employees in early October, noting the bank, best known in recent years for scamming retail customers and botching small business refi loans, was just likely just starting to implement a larger plan that would result in the loss of tens of thousands of jobs.

    We knew then that other banks would eventually follow suit and now, it looks like this is starting to take place. JP Morgan has started hundreds of dismissals, including 80 at its consumer unit. Goldman has also started eliminating about 400 positions, including “back office roles”. 

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    While much of the financial sector was spared from massive layoffs due to the pandemic, hiring has finally slowed and other banks are starting to look at implementing cuts, according to Bloomberg.

    Alan Johnson, the head of compensation-consulting firm Johnson Associates Inc., predicts that the financial industry will see its headcount fall by 10% by mid-2021.

    “Financial services and banking has too many people. Next year is going to be very low hiring. There’ll be some layoffs,” he said.

    “Firms are not hiring at the levels they were. The trajectory of economic recovery is so unknown and it’s so uncertain and it’s so significant, and you overlay the pandemic and remote working and Zoom — if you’re a laid-off employee, this is a very difficult set of circumstances,” he added.

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    And so the financial service workers who spent the pandemic earning fees “arranging emergency loans” and handling an influx of volume on trading desks could all eventually see their heads on the layoff chopping block.

    Firings will likely focus on traditional banking, Bloomberg says, as banking services move to online formats. Wall Street could see some layoffs, however, especially given recent mergers (like that of Schwab and TD Ameritrade) in the brokerage space. 

    Even worse is that financial executives who are being laid off from large banks may find it difficult to find jobs at smaller, rival firms. The length of time to land a job has “roughly doubled” for senior executives since before the pandemic. Openings in banking and finance are down 21% from a year prior, according to data from Indeed.com.

    The one silver lining appears to be mortgage operations. With rates at historic lows, mortgage banks are the sole area in the industry that is adding personnel. 

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    Jeramy Kaiman, head of professional recruitment in western U.S. at staffing firm Adecco Group said: “Mortgage is booming — I don’t even know what other word to say. Candidates are all receiving three to five offers in 24 hours when they’re on the market.”

    As noted, Wells Fargo is expected to shed “up to tens of thousands” of workers over the next few years, reducing branches as part of its cost-cutting initiative. 

    Vickee Adams, spokeswoman for Wells Fargo, said: “In those situations, to ensure we continue to serve customers well, we keep employees working in other nearby branches whenever possible. We are as responsive to our employees as possible, providing jobs-search resources and other assistance as best we can.”

  • Talk Of "Unity" Is Both Hypocritical And Delusional
    Talk Of "Unity" Is Both Hypocritical And Delusional

    Tyler Durden

    Wed, 11/11/2020 – 19:00

    Authored by Gary Galles via The Mises Institute,

    In Joe Biden’s address after being declared president-elect by news organizations, he promised to be a leader who “seeks not to divide but to unify.” Making that assertion after the campaigns we have seen, not to mention the light-years-apart treatment of the candidates, while Donald Trump is still adamantly disputing the election because of alleged Democrat malfeasance is, at a minimum, ironic. And it would be the height of hypocrisy if only a few of Trump’s claims of cheating are true. But we need to go further and recognize that even the possibility of Joe Biden uniting us is a delusion.

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    Agreement on the specific ends we want to achieve is unattainable because our desires are mutually inconsistent. Our agreement is very limited on even very broadly defined issues, and once we look further than vague, aspirational language and feel-good generalities, Americans disagree on virtually everything.

    All of us want to be fed, clothed, housed, educated, etc. We agree in that sense. But we disagree about virtually every aspect of who, what, when, where, why, and how. We want different types and amounts, in different ways, at different times and places, and for different people. We are vastly different in the tradeoffs we are willing to make among our desires, not to mention who we think should pay our bills. Once we consider any of the myriad actual choices faced, the fact of scarcity necessitates that our specific ends conflict, rather than align.

    Consider a mundane example played out daily in our homes – breakfast. Does everyone in your family agree on “the most important meal of the day”? Does everyone even eat breakfast? Does each member have coffee, a cold caffeine drink, or neither? Juice? What kind? Are all agreed on when, where, what, or how much to eat? Do we agree on who should pay for breakfast, cook it, and clean up after it? Do we agree on the “dress code” that should apply, either at breakfast or afterward?

    Diverse individuals have diverse preferences. Multiplying this single example by the uncountable decisions that must be reached in society every day makes our fundamental disunity clear. And we are no more unified when we get to public policy. We are not in agreement about people’s rights and government powers that some view as essential but others view as unforgivable. The same is true of many foreign policy choices. We cannot be unified as “one nation under God” when some vehemently reject any reference to God. We cannot be unified about abortion when some view it as murder and others consider it sacred. Policies that take from some to give to others also inherently create disagreement from those whose pockets are involuntarily picked. Reducing what we take from some, entailing giving less to others than they wish, also triggers disagreement. So long as government dictates such choices, political unity is unattainable.

    In fact, politics as currently practiced eviscerates the one thing Americans could agree about. This reflects the far-too-little-recognized fact that we have greater agreement on what all of us want to avoid than on what all of us want. None of us wants what John Locke called our “lives, liberties, and estates” violated. That is, each of us wants rights and property defended against invasion. Respecting all of our property rights reduces the risk from predation for each of us. But creating added rights and privileges for some at the expense of others’ equal rights and privileges makes government the most dangerous predator, even when who is selected to do so is determined by majority vote.

    Each of us would like the freedom to peacefully pursue our own goals. As Lord Acton put it, “liberty is the only object which benefits all alike, and provokes no sincere opposition,” because freedom to choose for ourselves is always the primary means to our ultimate ends. That is why the traditional functions of government are to protect us from abuse by our neighbors and foreign powers, while its greatest threat is supposed protectors becoming predators against citizens. That is why Acton recognized that liberty requires “the limitation of the public authority.” But we are incredibly far from agreement on that today.

    Well-established property rights and the voluntary market arrangements they enable let individuals decide for themselves, limiting each of us to persuasion rather than coercion. Except in the very unusual case where we must all make the same choice, this allows us to better match our choices to our preferences and circumstances. And unlike minority votes in elections, every dollar “vote” matters.

    In fact, we should recognize that markets are our primary means to transform our disagreements into mutually beneficial cooperation, while restrictions on markets hobble that essential function.

    Say I offer you a widget for sale at $10 and you say yes. That does not mean we agree on its value. We disagreed. I valued it at less than $10 worth of other goods and services, or I wouldn’t have sold it for that. You must have valued it more than $10, or you wouldn’t have bought it for that. Importantly, however, we have transformed our disagreement on values into an exchange that gives both of us benefits we consider to be worth more than the costs.

    In contrast, talk of political unity is primarily rhetorical cover for those who are in power to coerce those who disagree with them. They benefit themselves at others’ expense, taking others’ resources and making them acquiesce in what they object to. And unlike markets, in which greater disagreements about value create greater net benefits from voluntary arrangements, “unifying” political initiatives are just ways to control who will be forced to do what for others, driving Americans apart while hamstringing cooperative arrangements and squandering the wealth they would have created.

    Grand invocations that “I will unify us” are actually shorthand for “We disagree about many things, but those in this group are unified against others’ preferences, and we mean to get our way, regardless of their well-being and desire,” which is made clear by the demonization of anyone who doesn’t support the supposed “unity” position as divisive.

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    That kind of unity is tyranny. Strengthening our union actually runs along a different path than the unity of 50 percent plus one, unified against the interests of others. It is uniting in a common commitment to honoring one another’s rights and the liberty this makes possible for all of us. Without unity in that, we can never achieve the kind of unity that is actually desirable and achievable. The alternative is the prospect of more of what we have experienced of late, which resembles what Thomas Hobbes called “a war of all against all.” But if we are united only by the ongoing fight to win that war against other Americans, we are selling out the birthright we have from our Declaration of Independence and Constitution.

  • Deutsche Bank Proposes A 5% "Work From Home" Privilege Tax
    Deutsche Bank Proposes A 5% "Work From Home" Privilege Tax

    Tyler Durden

    Wed, 11/11/2020 – 18:54

    At a time when the Fed is already monetizing the entire US budget deficit thanks to helicopter money, sparking conversations about the utility of taxation, and when a Biden administration is set to at least try and roll back most of the Trump tax cuts, the last thing the population wants to hear about is even more taxes.

    Yet in a “modest proposal” from Deutsche Bank, the bank argues that in a time of pervasive covid shutdowns, “those who can work from home (WFH) receive direct and indirect financial benefits and they should be taxed in order to smooth the transition process for those who have been suddenly displaced.”

    In other words, the argument goes that working from an office is somehow punitive, and since WFH during the pandemic leads to “many benefits” as a resulting “disconnecting themselves from face-to-face society” a 5% tax for each WFH day “would leave the average person no worse off than if they worked in the office.” The bank calculates that such a tax could raise $49bn per year in the US, €20bn in Germany, and £7bn in the UK. “That can fund subsidies for the lowest-paid workers who usually cannot work from home.”

    In the report written by DB strategist Like Tumpleman, he argues that the popularity of WFH was growing even before the pandemic: “between 2005 and 2018, internet technology fuelled a 173 per cent increase in the number of Americans who regularly worked from home. It is true that the overall proportion of people working from home before the pandemic was still small, at 5.4 per cent based on census data, but the growth was still way ahead of the growth in the overall workforce.”

    Naturally, the covid shutdowns have turbocharged that growth, and as a result the proportion of Americans who worked from home increased ten-fold to 56% during the pandemic. Many of these people will continue to work remotely for some time. Indeed, two-thirds of organizations say that at least three-quarters of their staff can work from home effectively, according to S&P Global Markets. Meanwhile, a DB survey shows that, after the pandemic has passed, more than half of people who tried out WFH want to continue it permanently for between two and three days a week.

    This sudden shift to WFH means that, for the first time in history, “a big chunk of people have disconnected themselves from the face-to-face world yet are still leading a full economic life” as if that is somehow a bad thing.

    It gets crazier: the bank claims that working in the comfort of one’s own home leads to a slew of financial benefits including:

    • financial savings on expenses such as travel, lunch, clothes, and cleaning.
    • indirect savings via forgone socializing and other expenses that would have been incurred had a worker been in the office.
    • intangible benefits of working from home, such as greater job security, convenience, and flexibility.
    • There is also the benefit of additional safety.

    As if it is difficult to find someone who also sits in front of a computer all day long in Bangladesh and has the exact same skillset but would work for a fraction of the pay.

    Yet those people who are working remotely are, according to DB, the equivalent of social parasites as they “contribute less to the infrastructure of the economy whilst still receiving its benefits” potentially extending the slump in national growth. In other words, the mere act of working from home makes you guilty of not propping up the economy!

    That, according to Templeman “is a big problem for the economy as it has taken decades and centuries to build up the wider business and economic infrastructure that supports face-to-face working. If a great swathe of assets lie redundant, the economic malaise will be extended.”

    In short, those who failed to develop the appropriate skillset and are “forced” to work in society – mostly employees of service companies – and who were unable to refused to educate and train themselves to be able to “enjoy” the benefits of work from home jobs which incidentally include sitting in front of a computer for hours on end and in some notable cases masturbating in front of a zoom conference call, have to be rewarded monetarily by all those who are lucky enough to not have to work in public.

    While it would be easy to laugh and merely brush this idea off as another ridiculous policy proposal from a bank whose very existence would be very much in question had it not been for several rounds of generous taxpayer funded bailouts, since this is yet another grossly socialist proposal we are concerned it has a very high probability of passage not only in Europe but also in the US, especially if Democrats manage to pull of a “Blue wave” sweep in Georgia in January.

    So far a WFH tax has merely been floated by a handful of Wall Street strategists; however once this idea gets more popular coverage, expect a groundswell of support for the idea which will promptly lead to yet another tax.

    Below we republish the Deutsche Bank note in its entirety because it is clearly a blueprint for what’s to come:

    A work-from-home tax, by Luke Templeman

    For years we have needed a tax on remote workers – covid has just made it obvious. Quite simply, our economic system is not set up to cope with people who can disconnect themselves from face-to-face society. Those who can WFH receive direct and indirect financial benefits and they should be taxed in order to smooth the transition process for those who have been suddenly displaced.

    The popularity of WFH was growing even before the pandemic. Between 2005 and 2018, internet technology fuelled a 173 per cent increase in the number of Americans who regularly worked from home1. It is true that the overall proportion of people working from home before the pandemic was still small, at 5.4 per cent based on census data, but the growth was still way ahead of the growth in the overall workforce.

    Covid has turbocharged that growth. During the pandemic, the proportion of Americans who worked from home increased ten-fold to 56 per cent. In the UK, there was a seven-fold increase to 47 per cent. Many of these people will continue to work remotely for some time. Indeed, two-thirds of organisations say that at least three-quarters of their staff can work from home effectively, according to S&P Global Markets. Meanwhile, a DB survey shows that, after the pandemic has passed, more than half of people who tried out WFH want to continue it permanently for between two and three days a week

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    The sudden shift to WFH means that, for the first time in history, a big chunk of people have disconnected themselves from the face-to-face world yet are still leading a full economic life. That means remote workers are contributing less to the infrastructure of the economy whilst still receiving its benefits.

    That is a big problem for the economy as it has taken decades and centuries to build up the wider business and economic infrastructure that supports face-to-face working. If a great swathe of assets lie redundant, the economic malaise will be extended.

    WFH is financially rewarding

    WFH offers direct financial savings on expenses such as travel, lunch, clothes, and cleaning. Add to these the indirect savings via forgone socialising and other expenses that would have been incurred had a worker been in the office. Then there are the intangible benefits of working from home, such as greater job security, convenience, and flexibility. There is also the benefit of additional safety. The newly-discovered gains of home working, both tangible and intangible, all have value. And they generally outweigh the costs. The latter have mostly come in the form of additional mental stress of juggling work and children, and dealing with an imperfect home-office setup. These costs should not be underestimated, however, they usually pale in comparison with the gains. Hence why the vast majority of home workers want to continue remote working, on at least a part time basis, after the pandemic passes.

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    First, the tax will only apply outside the times when the government advises people to work from home (of course, the self-employed and those on low incomes can be excluded). The tax itself will be paid by the employer if it does not provide a worker with a permanent desk. If it does, and the staff member chooses to work from home, the employee will pay the tax out of their salary for each day they work from home. This can be audited by coordinating with company travel and technology systems.

    The tax rate? Those who can work from home tend to have higher-than-average incomes. If we assume the average salary of a person who chooses to work from home in the US is $55,000, a tax of five per cent works out to just over $10 per working day. That is roughly the amount an office worker might spend on commuting, lunch, and laundry etc. A tax at this rate, then, will leave them no worse off than if they had chosen to go into the office. If we apply the same tax rate to workers in the UK with an assumed average WFH salary of £35,000, it works out to just under £7 per day. In Germany, a WFH salary of €40,000 leads to a tax of just over €7.50 per day.

    A tax at this level means that neither companies or individuals will be worse off. In fact, companies may be far better off as the savings from downsizing their office will more than make up for the cost of the WFH tax they will incur.

    How much will the tax raise?

    First the US. Of the 104m Americans who work full time, half worked from home during the pandemic. That is up from the 5.4 per cent who already worked from home before the pandemic. Of that additional 45 per cent, our survey shows that three quarters want to work from home to some degree post-covid with 16 per cent wanting one day a week, 33 per cent two days, 19 per cent three days, 4 per cent four days, and 4 per cent five days.

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    Adding this up, there could be 4.2bn new days every year being worked from home postcovid. With an additional 394m days for those part time and full time staff who already work from home and are not self-employed, that gives 4.6bn WFH days per year. At an average salary of $55,000 and a tax rate of five per cent, the WFH tax will raise $48bn per year. The same calculation in the UK and Germany (using country specific WFH data and the salary levels assumed above) yields a tax take of £6.9bn and €15.9bn respectively.

    What can the government do with this money?

    In the US, the $48bn raised could pay for a $1,500 grant to the 29m workers who cannot work from home and earn under $30,000 a year (excluding those who earn tips). Many of these people are those who assumed the health risks of working during the pandemic and are far more ‘essential’ than their wage level suggests.

    Similarly, in Germany, the €15.9bn raised could fund a €1,500 grant to the bottom 12 per cent of people in the country who have a standard of living equivalent to €12,600 (after adjusting for the size of their household). Similarly in the UK, the £6.9bn raised could provide a grant of £2,000 to the 12 per cent of those aged over 25 who work for the minimum wage. Of course, the exact amount of the grant could be based on an asymmetric tapering system.

    Some will argue against the tax. They will say that engagement with the economy is a personal choice and they should not be penalised for making that decision. Yet, these people should remember that governments have always backsolved taxes to suit the social environment. Consider that in centuries past, when it was socially unpalatable in the UK to introduce an income tax, the government implemented a window tax. As society changed, the window tax was abolished and, eventually, an income tax was introduced. In the same way, as our current society moves towards a state of ‘human disconnection’, our tax system must move with it.

    Best of all, a WFH tax does not merely subsidise businesses that have no long-term future. If, for example, a city-centre sandwich shop is no longer needed, it does not make sense for the government to support the business in the medium term. But it does make sense to support the mass of people who have been suddenly displaced by forces outside their control. Many will have to take low-paid jobs while they retrain or figure out their next step in life. From a personal and economic point of view, it makes sense that these people should be given a helping hand. It also makes sense to recognise that essential workers that assume covid risk for low wages. Those who are lucky enough to be in a position to ‘disconnect’ themselves from the face-to-face economy owe it to them.

  • Whitehead: End The Government's War On America's Military Veterans
    Whitehead: End The Government's War On America's Military Veterans

    Tyler Durden

    Wed, 11/11/2020 – 18:20

    Authored by John Whitehead via The Rutherford Institute,

    “For soldiers… coming home is more lethal than being in combat.”

    – Brené Brown, research professor at the University of Houston

    The 2020 presidential election may be over, but nothing has really changed.

    The U.S. government still poses the greatest threat to our freedoms.

    More than terrorism, more than domestic extremism, more than gun violence and organized crime, even more than the perceived threat posed by any single politician, the U.S. government remains a greater menace to the life, liberty and property of its citizens than any of the so-called dangers from which the government claims to protect us.

    This threat is especially pronounced for America’s military veterans, especially that portion of the population that exercises their First Amendment right to speak out against government wrongdoing.

    Consider: we raise our young people on a steady diet of militarism and war, sell them on the idea that defending freedom abroad by serving in the military is their patriotic duty, then when they return home, bruised and battle-scarred and committed to defending their freedoms at home, we often treat them like criminals merely for exercising those rights they risked their lives to defend.

    The government even has a name for its war on America’s veterans: Operation Vigilant Eagle.

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    As first reported by the Wall Street Journal, this Department of Homeland Security (DHS) program tracks military veterans returning from Iraq and Afghanistan and characterizes them as extremists and potential domestic terrorist threats because they may be “disgruntled, disillusioned or suffering from the psychological effects of war.”

    Coupled with the DHS’ dual reports on Rightwing and Leftwing “Extremism,” which broadly define extremists as individuals, military veterans and groups “that are mainly antigovernment, rejecting federal authority in favor of state or local authority, or rejecting government authority entirely,” these tactics bode ill for anyone seen as opposing the government.

    Yet the government is not merely targeting individuals who are voicing their discontent so much as it is taking aim at individuals trained in military warfare.

    Don’t be fooled by the fact that the DHS has gone extremely quiet about Operation Vigilant Eagle.

    Where there’s smoke, there’s bound to be fire.

    And the government’s efforts to target military veterans whose views may be perceived as “anti-government” make clear that something is afoot.

    In recent years, military servicemen and women have found themselves increasingly targeted for surveillance, censorship, threatened with incarceration or involuntary commitment, labeled as extremists and/or mentally ill, and stripped of their Second Amendment rights.

    In light of the government’s efforts to lay the groundwork to weaponize the public’s biomedical data and predict who might pose a threat to public safety based on mental health sensor data (a convenient means by which to penalize certain “unacceptable” social behaviors), encounters with the police could get even more deadly, especially if those involved have a mental illness or disability coupled with a military background.

    Incredibly, as part of a proposal being considered by the Trump Administration, a new government agency HARPA (a healthcare counterpart to the Pentagon’s research and development arm DARPA) will take the lead in identifying and targeting “signs” of mental illness or violent inclinations among the populace by using artificial intelligence to collect data from Apple Watches, Fitbits, Amazon Echo and Google Home.

    These tactics are not really new.

    Many times throughout history in totalitarian regimes, such governments have declared dissidents mentally ill and unfit for society as a means of rendering them disempowering them.

    As Pulitzer Prize-winning author Anne Applebaum observes in Gulag: A History: “The exile of prisoners to a distant place, where they can ‘pay their debt to society,’ make themselves useful, and not contaminate others with their ideas or their criminal acts, is a practice as old as civilization itself. The rulers of ancient Rome and Greece sent their dissidents off to distant colonies. Socrates chose death over the torment of exile from Athens. The poet Ovid was exiled to a fetid port on the Black Sea.”

    For example, government officials in the Cold War-era Soviet Union often used psychiatric hospitals as prisons in order to isolate political prisoners from the rest of society, discredit their ideas, and break them physically and mentally through the use of electric shocks, drugs and various medical procedures.

    Insisting that “ideas about a struggle for truth and justice are formed by personalities with a paranoid structure,” the psychiatric community actually went so far as to provide the government with a diagnosis suitable for locking up such freedom-oriented activists.

    In addition to declaring political dissidents mentally unsound, Russian officials also made use of an administrative process for dealing with individuals who were considered a bad influence on others or troublemakers.

    Author George Kennan describes a process in which:

    The obnoxious person may not be guilty of any crime . . . but if, in the opinion of the local authorities, his presence in a particular place is “prejudicial to public order” or “incompatible with public tranquility,” he may be arrested without warrant, may be held from two weeks to two years in prison, and may then be removed by force to any other place within the limits of the empire and there be put under police surveillance for a period of from one to ten years. Administrative exile–which required no trial and no sentencing procedure–was an ideal punishment not only for troublemakers as such, but also for political opponents of the regime.

    Sound familiar?

    This age-old practice by which despotic regimes eliminate their critics or potential adversaries by declaring them mentally ill and locking them up in psychiatric wards for extended periods of time is a common practice in present-day China.

    What is particularly unnerving, however, is how this practice of eliminating or undermining potential critics, including military veterans, is happening with increasing frequency in the United States.

    Remember, the National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) opened the door for the government to detain as a threat to national security anyone viewed as a troublemaker. According to government guidelines for identifying domestic extremists—a word used interchangeably with terrorists—technically, anyone exercising their First Amendment rights in order to criticize the government qualifies.

    It doesn’t take much anymore to be flagged as potentially anti-government in a government database somewhere—Main Core, for example—that identifies and tracks individuals who aren’t inclined to march in lockstep to the government’s dictates.

    In fact, as the Washington Post reports, communities are being mapped and residents assigned a color-coded threat score—green, yellow or red—so police are forewarned about a person’s potential inclination to be a troublemaker depending on whether they’ve had a career in the military, posted a comment perceived as threatening on Facebook, suffer from a particular medical condition, or know someone who knows someone who might have committed a crime.

    The case of Brandon Raub is a prime example of Operation Vigilant Eagle in action.

    Raub, a 26-year-old decorated Marine, actually found himself interrogated by government agents about his views on government corruption, arrested with no warning, labeled mentally ill for subscribing to so-called “conspiratorial” views about the government, detained against his will in a psych ward for standing by his views, and isolated from his family, friends and attorneys.

    On August 16, 2012, a swarm of local police, Secret Service and FBI agents arrived at Raub’s Virginia home, asking to speak with him about posts he had made on his Facebook page made up of song lyrics, political opinions and dialogue used in a political thriller virtual card game.

    Among the posts cited as troublesome were lyrics to a song by a rap group and Raub’s views, shared increasingly by a number of Americans, that the 9/11 terrorist attacks were an inside job.

    After a brief conversation and without providing any explanation, levying any charges against Raub or reading him his rights, Raub was then handcuffed and transported to police headquarters, then to a medical center, where he was held against his will due to alleged concerns that his Facebook posts were “terrorist in nature.”

    Outraged onlookers filmed the arrest and posted the footage to YouTube, where it quickly went viral. Meanwhile, in a kangaroo court hearing that turned a deaf ear to Raub’s explanations about the fact that his Facebook posts were being read out of context, Raub was sentenced to up to 30 days’ further confinement in a psychiatric ward.

    Thankfully, The Rutherford Institute came to Raub’s assistance, which combined with heightened media attention, brought about his release and may have helped prevent Raub from being successfully “disappeared” by the government.

    Even so, within days of Raub being seized and forcibly held in a VA psych ward, news reports started surfacing of other veterans having similar experiences.

    “Oppositional defiance disorder” (ODD) is another diagnosis being used against veterans who challenge the status quo. As journalist Anthony Martin explains, an ODD diagnosis

    “denotes that the person exhibits ‘symptoms’ such as the questioning of authority, the refusal to follow directions, stubbornness, the unwillingness to go along with the crowd, and the practice of disobeying or ignoring orders. Persons may also receive such a label if they are considered free thinkers, nonconformists, or individuals who are suspicious of large, centralized government… At one time the accepted protocol among mental health professionals was to reserve the diagnosis of oppositional defiance disorder for children or adolescents who exhibited uncontrollable defiance toward their parents and teachers.”

    Frankly, based on how well my personality and my military service in the U.S. Armed Forces fit with this description of “oppositional defiance disorder,” I’m sure there’s a file somewhere with my name on it.

    That the government is using the charge of mental illness as the means by which to immobilize (and disarm) these veterans is diabolical. With one stroke of a magistrate’s pen, these veterans are being declared mentally ill, locked away against their will, and stripped of their constitutional rights.

    If it were just being classified as “anti-government,” that would be one thing.

    Unfortunately, anyone with a military background and training is also now being viewed as a heightened security threat by police who are trained to shoot first and ask questions later.

    Feeding this perception of veterans as ticking time bombs in need of intervention, the Justice Department launched a pilot program in 2012 aimed at training SWAT teams to deal with confrontations involving highly trained and often heavily armed combat veterans.

    The result?

    Police encounters with military veterans often escalate very quickly into an explosive and deadly situation, especially when SWAT teams are involved.

    For example, Jose Guerena, a Marine who served in two tours in Iraq, was killed after an Arizona SWAT team kicked open the door of his home during a mistaken drug raid and opened fire. Thinking his home was being invaded by criminals, Guerena told his wife and child to hide in a closet, grabbed a gun and waited in the hallway to confront the intruders. He never fired his weapon. In fact, the safety was still on his gun when he was killed. The SWAT officers, however, not as restrained, fired 70 rounds of ammunition at Guerena—23 of those bullets made contact. Apart from his military background, Guerena had had no prior criminal record, and the police found nothing illegal in his home.

    John Edward Chesney, a 62-year-old Vietnam veteran, was killed by a SWAT team allegedly responding to a call that the Army veteran was standing in his San Diego apartment window waving what looked like a semi-automatic rifle. SWAT officers locked down Chesney’s street, took up positions around his home, and fired 12 rounds into Chesney’s apartment window. It turned out that the gun Chesney reportedly pointed at police from three stories up was a “realistic-looking mock assault rifle.”

    Ramon Hooks’ encounter with a Houston SWAT team did not end as tragically, but it very easily could have. Hooks, a 25-year-old Iraq war veteran, was using an air rifle gun for target practice outside when a Homeland Security Agent, allegedly house shopping in the area, reported him as an active shooter. It wasn’t long before the quiet neighborhood was transformed into a war zone, with dozens of cop cars, an armored vehicle and heavily armed police. Hooks was arrested, his air rifle pellets and toy gun confiscated, and charges filed against him for “criminal mischief.”

    Given the government’s increasing view of veterans as potential domestic terrorists, it makes one think twice about government programs encouraging veterans to include a veterans designation on their drivers’ licenses and ID cards.

    Hailed by politicians as a way to “make it easier for military veterans to access discounts from retailers, restaurants, hotels and vendors across the state,” it will also make it that much easier for the government to identify and target veterans who dare to challenge the status quo.

    Remember: no one is spared in a police state.

    Eventually, as I make clear in my book Battlefield America: The War on the American People, we all suffer the same fate.

    It stands to reason that if the government can’t be bothered to abide by its constitutional mandate to respect the citizenry’s rights—whether it’s the right to be free from government surveillance and censorship, the right to due process and fair hearings, the right to be free from roadside strip searches and militarized police, or the right to peacefully assemble and protest and exercise our right to free speech—then why should anyone expect the government to treat our nation’s veterans with respect and dignity?

    It’s time to end the government’s war on the American people, and that includes military veterans.

    Certainly, veterans have enough physical and psychological war wounds to overcome without adding the government to the mix. Although the U.S. boasts more than 20 million veterans who have served in World War II through the present day, large numbers of veterans are impoverished, unemployed, traumatized mentally and physically, struggling with depression, suicide, and marital stress, homeless, subjected to sub-par treatment at clinics and hospitals, and left to molder while their paperwork piles up within Veterans Administration offices.

    At least 60,000 veterans died by suicide between 2008 and 2017.

    On average, 6,000 veterans kill themselves every year, and the numbers are on the rise.

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    The plight of veterans today—and their treatment at the hands of the U.S. government—remains America’s badge of shame.

    So here’s a suggestion: if you really want to do something to show your respect and appreciation for the nation’s veterans, why not skip the parades and the flag-waving and instead go exercise your rights—the freedoms that those veterans swore to protect—by pushing back against the government’s tyranny.

    It’s time the rest of the nation did its part to safeguard the freedoms we too often take for granted.

    Freedom is not free.

  • Toobin Fired From New Yorker For Jerking Off During Zoom Call
    Toobin Fired From New Yorker For Jerking Off During Zoom Call

    Tyler Durden

    Wed, 11/11/2020 – 18:00

    Journalist Jeffrey Toobin, who was suspended by CNN and The New Yorker after he was caught masturbating on a zoom call last month in full view of colleagues, has been fired by the latter publication.

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    Toobin confirmed his firing in a Wednesday tweet, writing “I was fired today by @NewYorker after 27 years as a Staff Writer.”

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    In a memo to Condé Nast employees, executive Stan Duncan wrote: “I am writing to share with you that our investigation regarding Jeffrey Toobin is complete, and as a result, he is no longer affiliated with our company.”

    “I want to assure everyone that we take workplace matters seriously. We are committed to fostering an environment where everyone feels respected and upholds our standards of conduct.”

    Meanwhile, a New Yorker spokesperson told The Hill: “As a result of our investigation, Jeffrey Toobin is no longer affiliated with the company.”

    After originally reporting on October 19 that Toobin had ‘exposed himself’ during the zoom call, Vice issued a late day correction to note that Toobin was actively jerking off.

    “This piece has been updated with more detail about the call and the headline has been updated to reflect that Toobin was masturbating.” –Vice

    Toobin told Vice that he had “made an embarrassingly stupid mistake, believing I was off camera,” before apologizing to his wife, family, friends and co-workers.”

    “I believed I was not visible on Zoom,” he added.

    CNN, meanwhile, has yet to take action against Toobin, who will quite literally never live this down.

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Nov 11

Today’s News 11th November 2020

  • Trump Files Emergency Injunction In Michigan Alleging Fraud; Demands Recounts Over 'Malfunctioning' Dominion Machines
    Trump Files Emergency Injunction In Michigan Alleging Fraud; Demands Recounts Over ‘Malfunctioning’ Dominion Machines

    Tyler Durden

    Wed, 11/11/2020 – 01:43

    The Trump campaign has requested an emergency injunction in a federal lawsuit aimed at preventing the State of Michigan from certifying the results of last week’s election until election officials can certify that only legally cast, on time, and legally observed ballots are included in the count. The campaign is alleging several types of fraud, misconduct, and invalidated ballots based on a number of reasons – including ‘malfunctioning’ vote counting machines made by Dominion Voting Systems.

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    The Tuesday night filing in the US District Court for the Western District of Michigan alleges, among other things, that officials prevented GOP challengers from observing the count, scanned “batches of the same ballots multiple times,” illegally accepted and pre-dated late ballots, including from unmonitored drop boxes, and that election workers illegally duplicated ballots,” according to a statement from the campaign. The lawsuit requeusts that the court toss all ballots not observed by a GOP election challenger who has been “allowed to meaningfully observe the process and the handling and counting of the ballot.” 

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    Absentee ballot removed for counting at TCF Center in Detroit, Nov. 4 2020 (photo: Kimberly P. Mitchell, Detroit Free Press)

    The complaint includes “more than one hundred credentialed election challengers” who have provided “sworn affidavits” that they were prevented from reviewing the ballot count, or validate the legitimacy of absentee ballots. Michigan Secretary of State Jocelyn Benson is accused in the suit of failing to follow state election code, which allowed “fraud and incompetence to corrupt the conduct of the 2020 general election.”

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    GOP challengers allegedly blocked and intimidated: 

    • Many challengers testified that their ability to view the handling, processing, and  counting of ballots was physically and intentionally blocked by election officials.
    • At least three challengers said they were physically pushed away from counting tables by election officials to a distance that was too far to observe the counting.
    • Republican challengers who left the TCF Center were not allowed to return, while Democrats were, resulting in “many more Democratic challengers allowed to observe the processing and counting of absent voter ballots.”
    • Many challengers testified that they were intimidated, threatened, and harassed by election officials during the ballot processing and counting process.

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    GOP election challengers demand to be let into the TCF Center in Detroit on Wednesday, Nov 4 2020

    For reference, here’s a video of people cheering as GOP poll watchers were thrown out of the TCF Center in Detroit as absentee ballots were counted.

    Batches of ballots run through multiple times:

    Multiple GOP challengers attested that “batches of ballots were repeatedly run through the vote tabulation machines,” with one challenger saying she observed “a stack of about fifty ballots being fed multiple times into a ballot scanner counting machine.” Another challenger claims they “observed a station where election workers were working on scanned ballots that had issues that needed to be manually corrected,” adding “I believe some of these workers were changing votes that had been cast for Donald Trump and other Republican candidates.”

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    When challengers did bring up issues with ballots, they were “ignored and disregarded,” according to the complaint, with one claiming that “ballots with votes for Trump were separated from other ballots,” and that when they raised challenges over ballot numbers which didn’t match their envelopes, they were “disregarded and ignored by election officials,” and the “ballots were processed and counted.”

    The filing also claims that ballots which could not be read by a machine were unlawfully duplicated out of the view of challengers, and weren’t conducted by a bipartisan pair of election inspectors.

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    Faulty tabulation software:

    The suit notes that in Antrim County, Michigan, voting machines manufactured by Dominion Voting Systems “were at fault” when they erroneously gave over 6,000 Trump votes to former Vice President Joe Biden. The ‘error’ – potentially affecting the same machines used in Wayne County – was blamed by Secretary of State Benson on a county clerk who failed to update certain “media drives.”

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    Also noted were Dominion machine errors in Oakland County Michigan, which resulted in a Democrat being wrongly declared the winner of a commissioner’s race by 104 votes – only to have their seat flip back to the rightful Republican candidate after the error was caught.

    “These vote tabulator failures are a mechanical malfunction that, under MCL 168.831-168.839, requires a “special election” in the precincts affected,” reads the filing.

    Back-dated absentee ballots:

    The filing also alleges backdating of ballots, after attorney and GOP challenger Jessica Connarn says she was told by a poll worker told her they were “being told to change the date on ballots to reflect that the ballots were received on an earlier date.”

    Connarn has provided a photograph of a note handed to her by the poll worker as evidence they were instructed to change the date so that absentee ballots received after 8:00 p.m. on Election Day would be counted.

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    Poll workers count absentee ballots for the city of Detroit at the TCF Center in downtown Detroit on Tuesday, November 3, 2020. (Photo: Ryan Garza, Detroit Free Press)

    The Trump campaign also says that ballots were deposited in remote, unattended drop boxes which are “essentially equivalent to a polling place where a person can deposit a ballot,” but “there is no validation that the individual deposing a ballot in the box is an individual who is qualified to cast a vote or to lawfully deliver a ballot cast by a lawful voter.” The filing says that according to Michigan law, a remote ballot drop box “must use video monitoring of that drop box to ensure effective monitoring…“

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    Now we wait to see if over 100 affidavits and Trump Campaign attorney Thor Hearne are able to persuade a Michigan judge to halt certifying Joe Biden winner the state.

  • The War Is Over… GloboCap Triumphs!
    The War Is Over… GloboCap Triumphs!

    Tyler Durden

    Wed, 11/11/2020 – 00:05

    Authored (mostly satirically) by CJ Hopkins via The Consent Factory,

    OK, so, that was not cool. For one terrifying moment there, it actually looked like GloboCap was going to let Russian-Asset Hitler win. Hour after hour on election night, states on the map kept turning red, or pink, or some distinctly non-blue color. Wisconsin … Michigan … Georgia … Florida. It could not be happening, and yet it was. What other explanation was there? The Russians were stealing the election again!

    But, of course, GloboCap was just playing with us. They’re a bunch of practical jokers, those GloboCap guys. Naturally, they couldn’t resist the chance to wind us up just one more time.

    Seriously, though, while I enjoy a good prank, I still have a number of liberal friends, many of whom were on the verge of suffering major heart attacks as they breathlessly waited for the corporate media to confirm that they had successfully voted a literal dictator out of power. (A few of them suffer from IBS or other gastrointestinal disorders, so, in light of the current toilet paper shortage caused by the Return of the Apocalyptic Plague, toying with them like that was especially cruel.)

    But, whatever. That’s water under the bridge. The good news is, the nightmare is over! Literal Hitler and his underground army of Russia-loving white supremacists have been vanquished! Decency has been restored! Globalization has risen from the dead!

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    And, of course, the most important thing is, racism in America is over … again!

    Yes, that’s right, folks, no more racism … kiss all those Confederate monuments goodbye! The Democrats are back in the White House! According to sources, the domestic staff are already down in the West Wing basement looking for that MLK bust that Trump ordered removed and desecrated the moment he was sworn into office. College kids are building pyres of racist and potentially racist books, and paintings, and films, and other degenerate artworks. Jussie Smollet can finally come out of hiding.

    OK, granted, they’re not going to desegregate liberal cities or anything crazy like that, or stop “policing” Black neighborhoods like an occupying army, or stop funding schools with property taxes, but Kamala Harris is Black, mostly, and Grampa Joe will tell us more stories about “Corn Pop,” the razor-wielding public-pool gangster, and other dangerous Black people he hasn’t yet incarcerated, so that should calm down all those BLM folks.

    In the meantime, the official celebrations have begun. Assorted mass-murdering GloboCap luminaries, government leaders, and the corporate media are pumping out hopey-changey propaganda like it was 2008 all over again. Pundits are breaking down and sobbing on television. Liberal mobs are ritualistically stomping Cheetos to the death in the street. Slaphappy hordes of Covidian Cultists are amassing outdoors, masks around their necks, sharing champagne bottles and French-kissing each other, protected from the virus by the Anti-Trump Force Field that saved the BLM protesters last Summer. It’s like V-Day, the fall of the Berlin wall, and the bin Laden assassination all rolled into one!

    All of which is understandable, given the horrors of the last four years, the concentration camps, the wars of aggression, the censorship, the CIA murder squads, the show trials, and all that other dictator stuff. On top of which, there was all that white supremacy, and that anti-Semitism, and that horrible wall that transformed America into an “apartheid state” where people were imprisoned in an open-air ghetto and gratuitously abused and murdered. (Whoops, I think I screwed up my citations … maybe double-check those links.)

    But let’s not dwell on all those horrors right now. There will be plenty of time for all that later, when Donald Trump is hauled into court and tried for his crimes against humanity, like all our previous war-criminal presidents.

    No, this is a time for looking ahead to the Brave New Global-Capitalist Normal, in which everyone will sit at home in their masks surfing the Internet on their toasters with MSNBC playing in the background … well, OK, not absolutely everyone. The affluent will still need to fly around in their private jets and helicopters, and take vacations on their yachts, and, you know, all the usual affluent stuff. But the rest of us won’t have to go anywhere or meet with anyone in person, because our lives will be one never-ending Zoom meeting carefully monitored by official fact-checkers to ensure we’re not being “misinformed” or exposed to “dangerous conspiracy theories” which could potentially lead to the agonized deaths (or the mild-to-moderate flu-like illnesses) of hundreds of millions of innocent people.

    But let’s not count our chickens just yet. As much as you’re probably looking forward to life in the Brave New GloboCap Normal, or the Great Reset, or whatever they end up calling the new pathologized totalitarianism, it isn’t a fait accompli quite yet … not until Russian-Asset Hitler has been thoroughly humiliated and removed from office, and anyone who voted for him, or didn’t believe he was literally Hitler, or a Russian asset, or who otherwise refused to take part in the mindless, corporate-media-generated Anti-Trump Hate-Fest, has been demonized as a “racist,” a “traitor,” an “anti-Semite,” a “conspiracy theorist,” or some other type of “far-right extremist.” That’s probably going to take another couple months.

    I’m pretty certain the plan is still to goad Trump into overreacting and trying to resist his removal from office. And I do not mean just in the courts. No, after all the money, time, and effort that GloboCap has invested over the last four years, they are going to be extremely disappointed if he just slinks away with going full-Hitler and starting a Second Civil War.

    As I’ve been saying, over and over, since he won the election, GloboCap needs to make an example of Trump to put down the widespread populist rebellion against global capitalism and its ideology that started back in 2016. And no, it doesn’t make any difference whether Donald Trump is actually a populist, or whether people realize that it is global capitalism and not “Cultural Marxism” that they are rebelling against.

    According to the script, this is the part where Trump refuses to respect “democracy” and has to be forcibly dragged out of office by the Secret Service or elements of the military, ideally “live” on international television. It may not end up playing out that way (Trump is probably not as dumb as I think), but that’s the Act III scenario for GloboCap: the “attempted Trump coup,” then the “perp walk.” They need the public and future generations to perceive him as an “illegitimate president,” a “usurper,” an “intruder,” an “imposter,” an “invader” … which, he is. (Being rich and famous does not make you a member of the GloboCap Power Club.)

    The corporate media are already hard at work manufacturing this version of reality, not only in the content of their “reporting,” but also with the unbridled contempt they are showing for a sitting president. The networks actually cut him off in the middle of his post-election address. The Twitter Corporation is censoring his tweets. What could possibly be more humiliating … and indicative of who is really in charge?

    Meanwhile, the GloboCap propaganda has reached some new post-Orwellian level. After four long years of “RUSSIA HACKED THE ELECTION!” … now, suddenly, “THERE IS NO SUCH THING AS ELECTION FRAUD IN THE USA!”

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    That’s right, once again, millions of liberals, like that scene in 1984 where the Party switches official enemies right in the middle of the Hate-Week speech, have been ordered to radically reverse their “reality,” and hysterically deny the existence of the very thing they have been hysterically alleging for four solid years … and they are actually doing it!

    At the same time, the Trumpians have been reduced to repeating, over and over, and over, that “THE MEDIA DOES NOT SELECT THE PRESIDENT,” and “BIDEN IS NOT THE PRESIDENT ELECT,” and other versions of “THIS CAN’T BE HAPPENING.”

    I hate to rub salt into anyone’s wounds (particularly those whose faces are currently being stomped on by GloboCap’s enormous boot), but, yes, this is actually happening. Second Civil War or no Second Civil War, this is the end for Donald Trump. As Biden and the corporate media keep telling us, we are looking at a “very dark winter,” on the other side of which a new reality awaits us … a new, pathologized, totalitarian reality.

    Call it the “New Normal,” or whatever you want. Pretend “democracy has triumphed” if you want. Wear your mask. Mask your children. Terrorize them with pictures of “death trucks,” tales of “Russian hackers” and “white supremacist terrorists.”

    Live in fear of an imaginary plague (or perhaps a non-imaginary plague if that “very dark winter” comes to pass). Censor all dissent. Ban all protests. Do not attempt to adjust your telescreen. Click on the link to join the Zoom meeting. Have your password and your identity papers ready. Watch your pronouns. Get down on your knees. It’s GloboCap Fucking Über Alles!

    *  *  *

    If, for whatever inexplicable reason, you appreciate Mr. Hopkins’ work and would like to support it, please go to his Patreon page (where you can contribute as little $1 per month), or send your contribution to his PayPal account, so that maybe he’ll stop coming around our offices trying to hit our staff up for money. Alternatively, you could purchase his satirical dystopian novel, Zone 23, or Volume I and II of his Consent Factory Essays, or any of his subversive stage plays, which won some awards in Great Britain and Australia. If you do not appreciate Mr. Hopkins’ work and would like to write him an abusive email, feel free to contact him directly.

  • In 'Game Changer' US Approves $23 Billion Sale Of F-35 Jets, MQ-9 Drones To UAE
    In ‘Game Changer’ US Approves $23 Billion Sale Of F-35 Jets, MQ-9 Drones To UAE

    Tyler Durden

    Tue, 11/10/2020 – 23:45

    In what’s being hailed as a game-changer in the region, the United Arab Emirates will receive up to 50 F-35 advanced stealth fighter jets from the United States.

    The deal also includes 18 battle-ready MQ-9B aerial drones and air-to-air and air-to-ground munitions in a deal worth nearly $24 billion, according to the AP.

    Secretary of State Mike Pompeo announced the Trump administration formally notified Congress on Tuesday following its authorization by the State Department.

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    Lockheed Martin F-35 Lighting II

    It marks the most concrete major step to have followed the historic normalization of ties between Israel, the UAE and Bahrain known as the Abraham Accords, which was brokered by the White House and finalized on September 15.

    “This is in recognition of our deepening relationship and the UAE’s need for advanced defense capabilities to deter and defend itself against heightened threats from Iran,” Pompeo said in in making the announcement.

    “The UAE’s historic agreement to normalize relations with Israel under the Abraham Accords offers a once-in-a-generation opportunity to positively transform the region’s strategic landscape,” Pompeo continued.

    When rumblings of the major F-35 transfer to an Arab state first began late summer into September, a number of Congressional leaders (not to mention Israel itself) worried this could breach the US official policy of Israel’s Qualitative Military Edge (QME). Essentially this says that by law Washington must ensuring Israel has military superiority over its neighbors.

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    Pompeo addressed both the concern over QME as well as the ‘counter Iran’ angle in his statement. “Our adversaries, especially those in Iran… will stop at nothing to disrupt this shared success,” he stated. 

    “The proposed sale will made the UAE even more capable and interoperable with US partners in a manner fully consistent with America’s longstanding commitment to ensuring Israel’s Qualitiative Military Edge.”

    Meanwhile Amnesty International and other human rights groups are protesting the transfer, given the UAE’s role in executing the war in Yemen, currently considered by the UN to be the biggest humanitarian disaster on the planet.

  • Ex-CIA Chief Under Obama Urges Palace Coup Against Trump So He Doesn't "Declassify Everything"
    Ex-CIA Chief Under Obama Urges Palace Coup Against Trump So He Doesn’t “Declassify Everything”

    Tyler Durden

    Tue, 11/10/2020 – 23:30

    Days ago amid the Trump administration’s election challenge turmoil which has resulted in over a dozen lawsuits filed in several battleground states, Donald Trump Jr. urged the president to unleash the nuclear option: “DECLASSIFY EVERYTHING!!!” he wrote in all caps on Twitter. “We can’t let the bad actors get away with it.”

    Others also picked up on the idea: “Here’s something constructive Trump could do before leaving office at noon on January 20: he could order — demand, insist — that all classified intel and other documents related to the origin of the Russia/election investigation be declassified and released to the public forthwith — unredacted,” columnist Sheldon Richman wrote.

    It didn’t take long for this distinct possibility to attract the attention of both the mainstream media and the intelligence establishment which has so long been at odds (or even at ‘war’) with the president. Reacting specifically to the ouster of Defense Secretary Mark Esper on Monday, ex-CIA spy chief under the Obama administration John Brennan essentially urged a palace coup against Trump prior to January 20th to ensure he doesn’t declassify anything sensitive or too revealing:

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    In the incredible Monday evening CNN interview, Brennan – himself responsible for stoking the now widely debunked Russiagate claims from the start of the Trump presidency – brazenly urged Vice President Mike Pence to seize power.

    He asserted that despite Biden preparing to transition into the White House on inauguration day, still two months away, at this point Trump is a threat to national security:

    “I’m very concerned what he might do in his remaining 70 days in office,” said Brennan on Monday’s edition of Cuomo Prime Time. “Is he going to take some type of military action? Is he going to release some type of information that could, in fact, threaten our national security interests?”

    Brennan took things even further and added specifics in terms of what the former longtime spy chief wants to see happen: “If Vice President Pence and the cabinet had an ounce of fortitude and spine and patriotism, I think they would seriously consider invoking the 25th Amendment and pushing Donald Trump out because he is just very unpredictable now,” he added.

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    And referencing what appears to be a post-election purge and exodus following multiple federal agency top officials either being pushed out or resigning since last Thursday even as votes were being tallied, Brennan suggested this is part of a Trump conspiracy to compromise national security. 

    “If Mark Esper has been pushed aside because he is not listening to Donald Trump, carrying out these orders, who knows what his successor, this acting secretary Chris Miller’s going to do if Donald Trump does give some type of order that really is counter to what I think our national security interests need to be,” Brennan said.

    But thankfully few actually in power are likely to listen to John Brennan, given his sour grapes and anger at Trump has clearly long been personal.

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    After all, who can forget this episode?

    John O. Brennan, the C.I.A. director under President Barack Obama, struck back at President Trump on Thursday for revoking his security clearance, calling the president’s claims of “no collusion” with Russia to influence the 2016 election “hogwash” and arguing that the commander in chief was trying to silence anyone who would dare challenge him.

    So given Brennan is now openly and literally calling for an illegal overthrow of the sitting president of the United States, Trump now appears fully vindicated in having revoked his security clearance in the first place.

  • Biden Not Expected To Change US 'Tough Posture' In South China Sea
    Biden Not Expected To Change US ‘Tough Posture’ In South China Sea

    Tyler Durden

    Tue, 11/10/2020 – 23:25

    Authored by Dave DeCamp via AntiWar.com,

    One area where a Biden administration is not expected to differ from President Trump’s policies is concerning China’s claims to the South China Sea. While Joe Biden and his cabinet may cool down the rhetoric towards Beijing, experts and analysts believe actual policy will not change.

    Experts told the South China Morning Post that Biden would not soften the US’s stance on the South China Sea, pointing out it was the Obama administration that began challenging Beijing’s claims to the waters.

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    US Navy warships file image

    The experts said Biden would likely continue sailing warships near Chinese-claimed islands in the South China Sea, operations known as Freedom of Navigation Operations (FONOPs). FONOPs to challenge Beijing’s claims in the waters started under the Obama administration in 2015, shortly after Chinese President Xi Jinping publicly pledged not to militarize islands and reefs China claimed in the South China Sea.

    During the final presidential debate, Biden bragged about the Obama administration’s tough stance against China’s claims to the South China Sea.

    “When I met with Xi, and when I was still vice president, he said ‘we’re setting up air identification zones in the South China Sea, you can’t fly through them.’ I said, ‘we’re gonna fly through them. We just flew B52/B1 bombers through it. We’re not going to pay attention,'” Biden said at the debate.

    This year has seen a significant uptick in US military activity in the South China Sea. US aircraft carriers have regularly drilled in the disputed waters throughout the year, and a Beijing-based think tank recorded a sharp rise in US military flights in the region.

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    The South China Sea Strategic Situation Probing Initiative (SCSPI) recorded 67 flights of US reconnaissance aircraft in the South China Sea in July, compared with 49 in June and just 35 in May. In September, the SCSPI recorded 60 US flights in the region.

    Meanwhile there remains huge uncertainty surrounding the Taiwan issue…

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    In July, the US formally rejected most of China’s claims to the waters. The Trump administration has also sought cooperation from Asian countries to counter China in the region, something a Biden administration will likely continue.

  • Bill Gross Blasted Music 'Louder Than The Pacific Coast Highway And The Ocean' To Exact Revenge On Neighbor
    Bill Gross Blasted Music ‘Louder Than The Pacific Coast Highway And The Ocean’ To Exact Revenge On Neighbor

    Tyler Durden

    Tue, 11/10/2020 – 23:05

    Bill Gross and his neighbor-turned-nemesis, Mark Towfiq, faced off in civil court for the first time this week after a dispute between the two Laguna Beach, Calif., residents exploded into the press.  The proceedings offered the public the first concrete glimpse into the feud between the two extraordinarily wealthy belligerents, and its gensis. As it turns out, the battle that drove Gross to blast Mariachi music and the theme from “Gilligan’s Island” at such intense volumes that it “drowned out the traffic from the nearby Pacific Coast Highway” all started with a multimillion-dollar sculpture purchased by Gross.

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    Bill Gross

    According to Bloomberg, the statue was a 22-foot-long blown glass sculpture by artist Dale Chihuly, and belonged to Gross. Mark Towfiq, Gross’s neighbor, was annoyed by the statue, and apparently filed a complaint with the city.

    It’s sometimes hard to feel sympathy for the megarich, and the way Towfiq handled this particular problem – by whinging to the town about his billionaire neighbor’s ugly statue – doesn’t reallly do him any favors in the PR department. The complaint infuriated Gross, who immediately responded by frequently blasting loud music from his $32 million home. It started with pop music – rap, hip hop – before escalating to mariachi and finally TV show theme songs.

    The tactics only escalated after Gross received a citation for the alleged violations from the town. Here’s what one town officer said during her testimony.

    Laguna Beach Police Officer Ashley Krotine testified Monday that she arrived at Gross’s home about 9 a.m. on Oct. 22, responding to a complaint about loud music. “When you say there was ‘loud Spanish music,’ was it louder than the ocean?” Jill Basinger, a lawyer for Gross, asked the officer.

    “Yes,” Krotine said.

    “How much louder?” Basinger asked.

    “I couldn’t tell you,” the officer said.

    “Louder than PCH?” Basinger asked.

    “Yes, louder than PCH,” Krotine said.

    Towfiq and his wife are suing Gross for harassment and emotional torment, with Towfiq’s lawyer claiming Gross and his girlfriend, former Tennis pro Amy Schwartz, had inflicted untold psychological damage and made their lives “a living hell”. Of course, Gross counter-sued, also claiming harassment, accusing Towfiq of being a “peeping Tom” who installed security cameras in an effort to sneak peaks at Schwartz when the two are out skinny dipping in their pool.

    “Enough is enough,” Gross said in a court filing. The billionaire says he “should not have to live tormented by the presence of cameras trained” on him because of “one man’s prurient obsessions.”

    Oh, and Gross also noted that “somebody” apparently threw a rock at his sculpture, causing damage that necessitated a $50k repair bill.

    The trial will resume Nov. 16.

  • The Deep State Vs The Deep Country
    The Deep State Vs The Deep Country

    Tyler Durden

    Tue, 11/10/2020 – 22:45

    Authored by The Saker,

    I need to begin with the obvious: in spite of all the deep state, propaganda and “deep empire” (transnational) resources being used to declare that “Biden” (i.e. Harris) has won, as of right now nobody knows who got most votes and where.

    I would even suggest that we will never really find out who won, because who won depends on a large number of local laws and regulations and because it will probably never be possible to separate the fake votes from the legal ones.

    Finally, neither side will ever gracefully admit to having lost the contest. So now the country will enter a profound crisis.

    That is the bad news.

    But there is also very good news.

    First, it has now become clear to the entire planet that the US “democracy” is anything but: the USA is an oligarchic plutocracy, plagued with a myriad of antiquated laws and corrupt to the bone. The special “trick” of this US oligarchic plutocracy is that is masquerades as an ochlocracy: there is *pretend* mob rule which serves as the microscopically small fig leaf hiding the real nature of the regime.

    Second, while the Dems did their best to hide this, and they still are, it is now becoming evident that the sheer magnitude of the fraud made it impossible to conceal it. Now if we think of how the AngloZionist Empire has handled equally non-believable nonsense (9/11, Syrian gas attacks, Skripal, Navalnii, etc.) we know what they are going to do next: double down, which will reassure the brainwashed zombies, but will even further infuriate those still capable of critical thought.

    Third, the behavior of the US media in this entire operation is so obviously disgraceful that nobody will ever take them seriously again (at least amongst the thinking people, the zombies glued to the Idiot Tube are beyond any rational arguments anyway). This is particularly important in regards to FoxNews who has shown that it was a pseudo-conservative propaganda outlet which, in reality, is completely committed to the political agenda of Rupert Murdoch and his family.

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    At this point in time, it is impossible to predict what will happen next, but the murder of JFK or the 9/11 false flag strongly suggest that the US deep state will win.

    There seems to only be one way for Trump to stay in power and it will probably look similar to this:

    Giuliani, who I was told won over 4’000 lawsuits in his career, is a very tough guy (look at what he did to the mob in NY!) and he must realize that the lawsuits he will file this week will be the most important ones in his career. They will even probably define his legacy. The notion that he would go to the courts with no solid evidence in his files is simply ridiculous. I don’t see any mechanism which can stop Giuliani now, so the ball will now go to the state and federal courts next and, after that, to the Supreme Court. There the situation is hard to predict.

    In theory, Trump probably has enough conservative Justices, especially with Ruth Bader Ginsburg gone and Amy Coney Barrett replacing her. That’s only in theory. In reality, things are much more complex. On one hand, the pressure of the deep state on the Justices will be immense, but on the other hand, once you are a SC Justice you cannot be attacked, at least not legally. Amy Coney Barrett will also face immense pressure to “prove” her “independence” (meaning, if she sides with Giuliani’s side she will be called a Trump shill and even much worse than that!). One thing is certain, any Justice siding with Giuliani will face immense pressures followed by a vicious denigration campaign. Who knows how many Justices would have the courage to face this?

    However, there is also the possibility that any Justice siding with Giuliani’s conclusions will go down in history as yet another “profile in courage”, so I would not completely discard that possibility either.

    [Sidebar: during my student years in the USA I had the chance to meet, and study with, such US officials as Paul Nitze or Admiral Zumwalt and I was always amazed at how candid former US officials were, but only once they retired. USSC Justices are not retired, of course, but, like retired officials, they are beyond the reach of any legal reprisals, and that might strengthen their willingness to honestly follow their conscience and speak their minds]

    Giuliani will certainly fight hard, but looking at the political correlation of forces I can’t see an outcome where Trump would successfully defeat a much stronger opponent. Think about it, the only possible ally for the Trump campaign would be the Supreme Court: the GOP, Congress, the Deep State, the legacy ziomedia, and even members of the Trump Administration (think Bolton or Esper here) all hate him with a passion. And now that Trump appears to be losing, they are not shy about it.

    Still, as the proverb says, we need to hope for the best but prepare for the worst.

    That is, obviously, a Harris Administration in control of the Executive.

    So what can we expect from these folks?

    First and foremost, a sustained campaign to completely negate the First and Second Amendments to the Constitution. Considering how truly sacred these two cornerstones of the US Constitution are for millions of US Americans, we can expect a lot of resistance from the “deplorables”, both legal and violent.

    Second, the control of both the Executive and all the major IT giants will mean that free speech will be driven even further underground. This new reality will require a lot of thinking in the development of a strategy to protect the voices which the regime in DC will now openly try to silence.

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    [Sidebar: possibly the dumbest mistake made by Trump was not to create his own TV channel. He had the money, he could have found allies, but he simply lacked the intelligence to see the danger. Instead, this narcissistic fool thought that Twitter was the way to bypass the legacy media. Is there a possibility that if he is thrown out of the White House we might finally understand that what the USA now so urgently needs is, at the very least, a free TV channel and at least one free social media option? Maybe, but I am not holding my breath, Trump always had this ability to disappoint…]

    Third, on the international front, we can expect even more hysterical Russia bashing (the Dems all hate Russia with a passion, especially since they have brainwashed themselves for four years that “Putin” had “attacked” the US elections). But there is really nothing the USA can do to Russia, it is way too late for that. So I would expect even more hot air than from the Trump Administration, and probably not much more action, although that is by no means certain, since a braindead nominal President like Biden would not have Trump’s intelligence to understand that a war against Russia, China or Iran would end in a disaster: Dems always start wars to try to convince the public that they are “tough” (Dukakis in his M-1 tank). Now that they not only appears as weak, but also illegitimate and even senile (did you see Biden trying to run to the podium?), they will have to prove their “virility” and send some cruise missiles flying somewhere (that kind of attack is what these cowards always use first).

    As I mentioned in the past, the outcome of this election will not have much of an impact on US foreign policy: first, the US elites more or less all agree on continuing a policy of violent imperialism; but even more crucial is the fact that the Empire is as dead as the Titanic was when it hit the iceberg: not all passengers realized what was taking place, but that did not affect the outcome in the least.

    Furthermore, as those familiar with Hegelian dialectics know, each action eventually results in a reaction and the notion that 70’000’000+ voters will simply accept what is self-evidently a coup against not only Trump, but also the US Constitution itself, is ridiculous. If anything, these people will now come to realize that while the US is facing no real foreign threats at all (except those it created itself), there is most definitely an internal threat, in the sense of the United States Uniformed Services Oath of Office, and that this reality gives them the right, and even duty, to “resist tyranny”.

    You have probably heard Joe Biden declaring that he wants to heal the wounds, restore unity, rule for all US Americans and the like. I don’t think that this is only empty political rhetoric, though that is part of it too. Mostly, I believe that the Dems are terrified because they know for a fact that they stole the election and this is why after four years of the most divisive and irresponsible rhetoric against Trump, “the racist system” and all the rest of the crap, they are now making a 180 (they are experts at that!) and pleading for calm, peace and unity.

    That ain’t going to happen.

    Finally, a word to those who like to say that there is no difference between the Dems and the GOP, that this is all a fake conflict: friends, you are both right and massively wrong. You are right when you say that the DNC and the RNC are like indistinguishable twins. But what you are missing are two crucial things:

    1. Factions inside one party can actually go after each other much harder than against their common enemies. I think of the SS vs the SA in Nazi Germany or the Trotskysts vs the Stalinists in the Soviet Union and during the Spanish Civil war.

    2. But, even more crucially, this is not a contest between the Democrats and the Republicans, it is a contest between a “rejected outsider” and both the DNC and RNC!

    Conclusion: not the RNC vs the DNC but the Deep State vs the deep country

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    A quick look at a map tells the story: this struggle is most one of the deep state vs the deep (real) country. Yeah, I know, Trump is hardly a miner from West Virginia or a farmer in Alabama. But that doesn’t matter one bit.

    What does matter is that the deplorables from the “overfly country” felt that Trump speaks for them and that he is all that stands between them and the (pseudo-) Liberals of CNN, the Antifa/BLM thugs and the destruction of the United States as we all knew them.

    And yes, this is a simplistic view, but it is fundamentally correct one nonetheless.

  • 70% Of Republicans Say Election 'Was Not Free And Fair'
    70% Of Republicans Say Election ‘Was Not Free And Fair’

    Tyler Durden

    Tue, 11/10/2020 – 22:25

    A vast majority of Republicans – 70% – believe the 2020 election was not ‘free and fair,’ according to a new poll by Morning Consult.

    Broken down further, 48% of Republicans polled say the election was “definitely” not free and fair, while 22% say it “probably” was not – over twice the percentage of Republicans who thought it wouldn’t be fair when polled just before the election.

    ​

    Morning Consult also found:

    • Republicans are most skeptical of the Pennsylvania results: Just 23 percent of Republican voters say they believe the results in the Keystone State are reliable, and no more than 3 in 10 say the same about the results in Arizona, Georgia, Michigan, Nevada and Wisconsin. Additionally, even for states like Texas and Florida, where Trump is projected to safely win, Democrats are more likely than Republicans to say the results are reliable. 
    • Overall trust in elections plummets among Republicans: Prior to the election, 68 percent of GOP voters said they had at least some trust in the U.S. election system. Post-election, that dropped to 34 percent. Democratic trust, meanwhile, jumped from 66 percent to 78 percent.

    ​ 

    • Among voters who doubt the 2020 election’s validity, mail-in voting is seen as the main culprit: Nearly 4 in 5 voters who say they don’t believe the election was free and fair cite widespread voter fraud caused by mail-in voting as a reason why. Additionally, 72 percent cite ballot tampering as a reason and 51 percent say the media gave the candidates unequal attention. 

    ​

    • Despite outstanding concerns, most voters don’t expect the results to be overturned: 63 percent of registered voters, including 75 percent of Democrats and 45 percent of Republicans, say it is unlikely that the election results will be overturned.

     
    ​

  • Will The Blockchain Economy Run On Bitcoin, Ethereum, Or Central Bank Digital Currency?
    Will The Blockchain Economy Run On Bitcoin, Ethereum, Or Central Bank Digital Currency?

    Tyler Durden

    Tue, 11/10/2020 – 22:05

    By The Fintech Blueprint

    Welcome to the new world.  The symptoms have shifted. What we see prioritized now is different. We welcome the return of respect for expertise, the love of rigor and curiosity, and a pursuit of dignified equity. A lot of calories have gone into this transformation. Our mental map of the territory is remade. Let’s mark things to market so that we are able to walk forward again.

    Yet, underneath it all is still the human swirl of chaos, organized only briefly into flashes of coherence and structure. The virus gorges on the social animal. The sovereign beasts continue to threaten each other with geopolitical, economic, and technological dominance. Markets still reflect financial constructions and schemes decoupled from the experience of the average person. High tech firms continue to build into software their addictive digital nation states. The vectors of change for software and money remain deeply anchored to the fractal of blockchain.

    The election’s end – and perhaps its reminder of the fragility of political governance – has reinforced the value of Bitcoin. When the old world wobbles, the new one seems more safe by comparison. The price of the cryptocurrency rose to over $15,000, breaking again the $250 billion market capitalization barrier. You can compare that $250 billion to the M1 money supply of a number of countries (link here) — Poland, Belgium, or Austria.

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    Perhaps this was also driven by the much discussed move from PayPal, the payment processor, to finally incorporate Bitcoin into its currency options. PayPal connects to something like 25 million merchants and 350 million users. Reminder that Ant Financial has 80 million merchants and 1.3 billion users — more on that later. We think the PayPal news is interesting and promising, but still in early stages. Allowing the purchase and sale of a commodity using a third party trust company (Paxos) is quite different from using a currency for economic activity. But we are getting there.

    For comparison, Visa today sits at about $420 billion in market capitalization, representing the discounted cash flows of owning a payment network. Its deal with Plaid, the data aggregation company, is on the rocks as the US Department of Justice files an anti-trust lawsuit to prevent the acquisition. Our prior write-up on the deal (link here) agreed with the logic of monopoly as it relates to Visa taking out a black-swan competitor. But we find the concept of blocking this deal on those grounds fairly absurd. A $100 million revenue data aggregation company is many steps away from offering a global payments network.

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    Let’s think about industry structure for a moment. The card network provides the payments infrastructure in the sense that it allows for money to move around on its network of nodes. Those nodes are financial or economic in nature, and speak in the language of money — banks, card issuers, e-commerce sites, point of sale terminals, regulators, and so on. You can send a little bit of messaging around, but primarily you are sending a financial instrument. And you don’t ask questions about the financial instrument. It simply is sovereign fiat. Value accrues to the network shareholder due to the small rent you take across all transactions.

    Therefore, your incentive as Visa is to maximize the organizational share of all transactions by broadening the network across the world and into every technological sphere. Through scale, your network gets better for participants. You start saying “network of networks” and paying $5B for start-ups. A naturally occurring monopoly, like Facebook and Google.

    PayPal is one layer higher up the stack. It is the check-out experience for a meaningful portion of the Internet. Square is the check-out experience for a meaningful portion of terrestrial small business. And so on. You can talk about payment processing and payment gateways and points of sale until everyone is confused. What’s nice about PayPal, and Stripe, and Square and generally that footprint of modern payments companies, is that they are software-native and have APIs and UIs. They integrate into things, and are part of the modern world. Most still ride the Visa or Marstercard “rails” and all prioritize the financial instrument of sovereign money. Their value accrues from aggregating the consumer or merchant footprint, and giving economic activity a way to flow in novel patterns.

    So what comes next, and how does it relate to the above?

    Central Bank Digital Currencies

    ConsenSys has been on a tear recently announcing 4 different CBDC projects on Ethereum infrastructure. Let’s briefly highlight those:

    The discussion of CBDCs is often a stark reaction to the development of Facebook’s Libra private stablecoin / USD network, and the Chinese deployment and expansion of their national digital currency. The discussion often splits into (1) wholesale CBDCs, which largely reinforce and optimize the role of banking institutions relative to the central bank’s money management authority, (2) retail CBDCs, which would bypass the banks and go directly into the wallets of consumers. The first option is about efficiency and industry cost mutualization. The second is more deeply transformative, and analogizes more closely to owning Bitcoin and using it to transact.

    In many of the projects above, there is a combination of a financial institution, a technology consulting firm, and a blockchain company coming together. ConsenSys brings forward enterprise Ethereum, which is a variant of the open source programmable blockchain optimized for a permissioned deployment with large transaction throughput. Unlike public Ethereum, which just launched the first phase of its scalability upgrade (Eth2), private permissioned networks scale more easily because you do not start with an open adversarial environment. Other examples of such enterprise networks would be IBM and Hyperledger Fabric, or R3 and its Corda technology, as the chassis for digital value transfer and settlement.

    How should we contextualize Ethereum-based CBDCs relative to Bitcoin, Visa, and PayPal?

    First, there is the actual network itself. Much of the current thinking is about the software protocol as the ledger. Where does the information actually live? Who hosts it? Who processes it? In the previous world, data centers and servers run by some firm (e.g., Visa or a cloud-provider like Google / AWS) hold a copy of the information and run software which performs computation about the transactions. In the current world, the blockchain is itself a set of some large number of duplicates of the data set, held by each of the network participants. In the case of programmable blockchains, those network participants are also each executing software programs, which are then synced across the entire system.

    Making sure this network functions and reflects the requirements of a central bank, or other constituents, is a key part of standing up a CBDC. This is, we think, what most industry participants are really thinking about. But it is missing a large part of the story.

    Take China. Its digital yuan has over 20 companies involved in development and launch, with a preferred spot given to the state-run banks (a detailed overview here). The state has been giving out free money to citizens in the form of the new currency to prove the viability of the concept. Yes, there can be discussion about the software architecture, centralization, and trying to combat the dollar. But the part that stood out most to us is a defensive posture towards WeChat and Alipay.

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    The digital yuan is the money — when it sits in a wallet on the phone, it is *merely* a financial instrument. When you transfer it around between participants, you are reconciling financial data with the data hosted by the central government. Financial institutions hold accounts at central banks and do this all the time, already. Don’t get us wrong, it is certainly disruptive. You could build taxation directly into consumer transaction flows, or implement universal basic income, or deliver Covid-related distributions with ease.

    Still, it is an instrument.

    The Smart Money Economy

    Let’s come back to Ant Financial. The world’s largest IPO of $34 billion was 870x oversubscribed. Ant is a fantastic story of innovation, global technology and payments progress, and the digital growth of Chinese small business. And yet, the Chinese authorities shut it down and are forcing the company to return money to investors.

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    Quite the surprise! Perhaps it was Jack Ma, the country’s wealthiest private business man ($50+ billion net work), not sufficiently following the party line about regulation.

    Or, perhaps, as the country tries to launch a national digital money, one must flex against the largest digital storefront in which that money must be used. As a reminder, Ant opened up its platform to many third parties across the banking, wealth management, and insurance industries in order to position itself as an impartial distributor (while taking distribution fees). An example of this open approach would be Western asset manager Vanguard coming in to offer its roboadvisor to the Ant audience. If the Chinese government is trying to close down competition related to its digital yuan, removing stablecoins and other cash equivalents in order to scale out its national solution, having Tencent and Ant under clear instruction becomes paramount.

    This brings us back to Ethereum. Public Ethereum already has a money on it — it is the digital dollar. And there is now $22 billion of it on the Ethereum chain.

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    What is interesting about money supply is not the money, but what you can do with it. Bringing back the discussion of the card networks and payment processors, we find that a programmable chain is able to incorporate into its software stack the gateways and business logic that used to sit outside of the network. Instead of adding PayPal on top of Visa, you can run all the software you need onchain — assuming scaling works out of course. This is why the “layer 2” developments for Ethereum, whether as part of Ethereum or adjacent to it, merit continued research and watch.

    Further, the applications with which the money would interact eventually live on the network as well. Today, that primarily points to decentralized finance, crypto art, and various virtual worlds. Over time and with deeper maturity, more commerce can become incorporated into the digital network itself.

    Remember that this happened to the Internet on a 20 year time horizon. The trillion dollar valuations supported by emergent business models — the operating system of the iPhone (30% on all commerce) and the shopping footprint of Amazon (the digital value chain) — give us the necessary patience and proof. Neither commercial path was yet available when people were trying to figure out the protocols to stitch together the Web. And who could have imagined that proprietary media production, like the Amazon exclusive “The Boys”, would be the axis for competition that locks users into a subscription for the walled gardens. You couldn’t even stream an MP3!

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    What is a CBDC really?

    Ant Financial succeeded by aggregating 80 million merchants on a payment rail with an operating system. PayPal succeeded by pulling together 25 million merchants across the Web. Apple succeeded by keeping a share of economic transactions across the mobile applications that it powered. What matters is not just the money, but what people do with it. And what they do with it is creativity, and the free exchange of goods and services.

    The CBDC projects today ask the question of how to move money around. Bitcoin has answered this question, and perhaps an applied architecture like permissioned Ethereum will solve this for national currencies.

    The deeper question is — what does an economy connected to a CBDC look like? What is the shape of merchants and applications that accept digital currency? Where do they perform their economic functions? If we think the venue for computing will increasingly be on blockchains, that suggests that CBDC rails should come not just with pre-installed national money, but also pre-installed applications for the use of that money. A payment rail will only be adopted if it is useful, and if it is applicable to a meaningful portion of human economic activity.

    Would you rather store value, or create it?

  • Vaccine Effectiveness: 90% vs 44%
    Vaccine Effectiveness: 90% vs 44%

    Tyler Durden

    Tue, 11/10/2020 – 21:45

    Some traders were confused by the market’s volcanic response to yesterday’s news that Pfizer has a covid vaccine with 90% effectiveness. Well, as DB’s Jim Reid explains today, “it’s easy to see why there is so much excitement over Pfizer’s news yesterday. When we compare the average 10 year effectiveness of the flu vaccine (44%) with vaccines for other diseases it falls well short and expectations were benchmarked around trying to beat this rather than compete with the most successful vaccines.”

    However, the early Pfizer number – which one must take with a ton of salt as it appeared not in a peer reviewed journal but in a corporate press release, and was oddly timed to hit just after the election – puts the vaccine effectiveness up there with that seen for Chickenpox, Mumps, Polio and Whooping Cough, which as Reid notes, is “a long way to go but very encouraging.”

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    Or said otherwise, of the 94 cases of covid contracted by participants in the Pfizer study, 86 occurred in the control group. If you tossed a coin 94 times, the chances of getting 86 or more heads is infinitesimally small so its safe to say the vaccine works.

    Of course, Pfizer is just one of many companies rushing to come to market with a working vaccine (whether the population will voluntarily take it is an other matter entirely). However, one thing is certain: as vaccine news permeates over the coming weeks and months the world will move on to discussing how to rebuild the world post covid; in this context any future push by administrations to enforce more mandatory quarantines and shutdowns will not be greeted well by the broader population.

  • What Happens If Puerto Rico Becomes A State?
    What Happens If Puerto Rico Becomes A State?

    Tyler Durden

    Tue, 11/10/2020 – 21:25

    Authored by Simon Black via SovereignMan.com,

    In late 2018, after more than seven fantastic years of living in Chile, I decided to move to Puerto Rico to take advantage of the island’s incredible tax incentives.

    By moving to Puerto Rico, I traded my right to vote in US federal elections for a 4% tax rate. And I’m pretty confident I got the better end of that deal.

    I’ve written about this quite extensively– but stick with me, because there’s a new twist to the story.

    As we’ve covered before, Puerto Rico is a territory of the United States.

    This means that the island falls under the jurisdiction of the US government for certain matters, like immigration and national defense.

    But it operates independently in other matters– like taxes.

    In fact, taxes is probably the most important one: Puerto Rico has its own tax system that’s completely independent from the United States.

    So residents of Puerto Rico can disconnect entirely from the US tax system, as long as their income is generated from Puerto Rican sources.

    This is a critical point: what constitutes Puerto Rican income?

    According to the tax code, this includes dividends paid by a Puerto Rican business, as well as capital gains from certain investments like stocks and bonds.

    So if you live in Puerto Rico and make most of your money from your Puerto Rican business, or you trade stocks, commodities, crypto, etc., then in most cases your income would be considered Puerto Rican in origin.

    If that’s the case, you are generally no longer required to pay US federal taxes on that income. In fact you might not even have to file a federal tax return at all.

    Instead, you would pay Puerto Rican taxes. And that’s where the incentives come in.

    Several years ago the Puerto Rican government established a number of extraordinary tax incentives, specifically targeted at those two cases–

    Traders, whose primary source of income is capital gains from their financial investments, literally pay ZERO tax.

    And entrepreneurs with qualifying businesses are only required to pay a 4% corporate tax rate (plus a tiny municipal rate that’s just a fraction of a percent, depending on which city you live in.)

    Plus, any dividends that your company pays to you are tax free as long as you live in Puerto Rico.

    This is an enormous benefit.

    If you live in the US mainland and operate an LLC, you’d pay, say, a 25% to 40% average tax rate on business income, not counting self-employment tax.

    If you run your business through a corporation, you’d pay 21% corporate profits tax, plus an additional 15% to 20% dividend tax, plus the 3.8% Obamacare surtax, plus state and local tax.

    In Puerto Rico it’s just 4%. Call it 4.5% to account for the local municipal tax. But that’s it. No extra dividend tax. No Obamacare surtax.

    You put more than 95% of your earnings in your pocket.

    This isn’t some obscure loophole or shady tax shelter. It’s the law.

    Section 933 of the United States federal tax code specifically exempts US citizens from federal tax on their Puerto Rican sourced income, as long as they are bona fide Puerto Rico residents .

    (Note that if you have US-sourced income, or income from foreign countries, that income would still be taxable by the IRS. Section 933 only excludes Puerto Rican income from US federal tax.)

    And in Puerto Rico, the incentives are also codified by law.

    In fact, once your tax incentive application is approved, you actually sign a contract with the government and are issued an individual tax decree.

    So even if they change the law later, you’d still be grandfathered in under the old rules, and continue to enjoy your current tax benefits.

    Now, here’s the twist: there are very, very few events that could trigger a problem with your tax incentives. But one of them just became more likely:

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    Puerto Rico is currently a US territory. But there’s been a movement for quite some time for Puerto Rico to become a state… similar to how there’s a statehood movement for Washington DC.

    Just like DC, Puerto Rico tends to skew quite liberal politically. So the blue party in the US is very much in favor of Puerto Rico and DC becoming states.

    (I hate breaking down the world into red and blue, but in this case, it’s relevant.)

    It means they would likely pick up 2 more senate seats for each one, nearly guaranteeing the Democrats control of the United States Senate.

    Several months ago, in fact, the House of Representatives passed a bill authorizing DC to become the 51st state. It was killed in the Senate.

    But it shows the movement is real.

    Last week, Puerto Ricans had their own election. And statehood was on the ballot.

    The final tally showed that a majority of Puerto Ricans want to become a state. The Democratic party wants them to become a state.

    And if that happens, the benefits would go away. Sure, your company would still be subject to a 4% tax rate in Puerto Rico. But then you’d have to pay US federal income tax on top of that.

    So statehood pretty much kills the deal.

    But does last week’s vote mean that Puerto Rico will become a state?

    No, not necessarily.

    Statehood would require approval by the US House of Representatives. Then the Senate would have to approve it.

    And in order for that to happen, the Democrats would need to take control of the Senate AND agree to eliminate the filibuster.

    Then the President would need to sign it into law.

    So, it’s possible this could happen, but it’s not especially likely.

    And even if it did happen, there would still be several years of a transition process.

    So, bottom line, the tax incentives in Puerto Rico are still valid and extremely valuable.

    And even if they only exist for another 3-5 years, they’re still definitely worth considering.

    *  *  *

    On another note… We think gold could DOUBLE and silver could increase by up to 5 TIMES in the next few years. That’s why we published a new, 50-page long Ultimate Guide on Gold & Silver that you can download here.

  • NJ Gov. Murphy Urges Spending For Hudson River Tunnel Despite State's Second Credit Downgrade In 2 Years
    NJ Gov. Murphy Urges Spending For Hudson River Tunnel Despite State’s Second Credit Downgrade In 2 Years

    Tyler Durden

    Tue, 11/10/2020 – 21:05

    Despite the fact that the MTA and NJ Transit can’t seem to get their acts together with the infrastructure they already have, why should we let that stop us from doling out more cash to them for more projects?

    That seems to be the thought process of first term New Jersey Governor Phil Murphy, who took to Bloomberg yesterday to tell the world he is “highly optimistic” that a Biden administration would approve funding for a new Hudson River rail tunnel.

    He said the tunnel is more likely to move forward under a Biden administration after the plans failed to materialize under the Trump administration.

    Perhaps offering some insight as to his acumen when it comes to financing such a project, he also said he “expects the Biden administration to flood the U.S. with cash” to fight Covid-19. There was nary a mention of where this magic cash is going to materialize from – though, we can take a guess. Brrr. 

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    Meanwhile, Murphy’s state is about to issue $4.28 billion in debt, representing 13% of its fiscal 2021 budget, to deal with a revenue shortfall that saw New Jersey hit with its second credit rating downgrade since Murphy has been in office in 2018. 

    Murphy said: “I’m highly optimistic that will get green-lighted — President-elect Biden knows this project very well. Literally it is shovel-ready. You could envision putting a shovel in the ground, first quarter of next year.”

    Murphy has hinted about imposing new Covid restrictions heading into the winter. Last week, he suggested that Thanksgiving meals on November 26 should be limited to “small groups of family”. Murphy said: “It’s hard for us to find a huge set of outbreaks in schools or restaurants or gyms. It’s really overwhelmingly private settings.”

    He then hilariously concluded: “The big plea is to not let your hair down. That’s exactly what this virus wants us to do, including when you’re at your house with your own family.”

    That’s some rock solid reasoning there, Phil. Thanks.

  • Ten Attorneys General Join Supreme Court Case Against Pennsylvania Mail-In Ballot Deadline
    Ten Attorneys General Join Supreme Court Case Against Pennsylvania Mail-In Ballot Deadline

    Tyler Durden

    Tue, 11/10/2020 – 20:45

    As Republicans across the country escalate efforts to investigate credible allegations of fraud during the 2020 election,  a group of ten Republican Attorneys General have filed an ‘amicus brief’ with the US Supreme Court in a case challenging the legality of late mail-in ballots in Pennsylvania.

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    AGs from Missouri, Alabama, Arkansas, Florida, Kentucky, Louisiana, Mississippi, South Carolina, South Dakota, and Texas filed in Republican Party of Pennsylvania v. Boockvar, which challenges the Pennsylvania Supreme Court’s late October decision to allow ballots arriving after Election Day to be counted – despite, as The Federalist  notes – state laws mandating otherwise.

    “Free and fair elections are the cornerstone of our Republic and it’s one of the reasons why the United States is the envy of the world,” said Missouri AG Eric Schmitt in a Monday press conference. “We have to ensure that every legal vote cast is counted in that every illegal vote cast is not counted.”

    Associate Justice Samuel Alito Jr. already granted the Republican Party of Pennsylvania’s request and temporarily ordered all counties segregate mail-in ballots that arrived after 8 p.m. on Election Day from others, but the lawsuit is still pending petition in the highest court.

    …

    The attorneys’ hope is that by filing as “friends of the Court” and demonstrating a “strong interest” in the ramifications of the Supreme Court’s potential decision that SCOTUS may be more willing to take up the case. –The Federalist

    “The actions taken by the Pennsylvania Supreme Court are one of the most breathtaking abuses of judicial authority that I’ve seen in my four-plus years as attorney general,” said Oklahoma AG Mike Hunter.

    Plaintiffs argue that the PA Supreme Court exceeded its authority and violated the Constitution’s Election Clauses which give state legislatures, not the courts, the power and “unique role” to decide various election procedures.

    “Our system of federalism relies on separation of powers to preserve liberty at every level of government, and the separation of powers in the Election Clauses is no exception to this principle,” reads the amicus brief.

    They also believe the decision handed down by the Pennsylvania Court expanded the potential for voter fraud. This decision, the attorneys general argue, may have affected the weight of votes in states outside of Pennsylvania which is in direct violation of previous Court rulings stating that every vote must be “fairly counted without its being distorted by fraudulently cast votes.”

    “Regardless of the election’s outcome, only legal ballots should be counted,” the brief continues, citing Anderson v. United States from 1974. –The Federalist

    “We as attorneys general and we, as the chief legal officers of our state have a responsibility to address that kind of judicial abuse of authority because of the precedent that that decision represents can affect the outcome of elections, not only in Pennsylvania but national elections,” said Oklahoma AG Hunter.

    Things are heating up when it comes to investigating the integrity of the election. On Monday, Attorney General William Barr authorized DOJ officials to open inquiries into potential irregularities – a move which led to the swift departure of the agency’s top voter fraud investigator, Richard Pilger.

    Shortly after meeting with Barr on Monday, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) delivered a floor speech asserting that President Trump is “100% within his rights” to challenge the results of the election.

    Democrats – who have notably changed their language from ‘there was no election fraud’ to ‘there was no widespread election fraud’ are now asserting that the DOJ may be trying to change the results of the election by investigating.

    Former Vice President Joe Biden, meanwhile, is acting like the election is settled. In addition to insisting Trump concede, Biden is expected to name a chief of staff as early as this week.

  • Bank of Japan Will Pay Banks To Consolidate, Fire Workers
    Bank of Japan Will Pay Banks To Consolidate, Fire Workers

    Tyler Durden

    Tue, 11/10/2020 – 20:45

    After more than half a decade of disastrous monetary policy which not only failed to stimulate inflation, boost exports or crush the yen, but has brought Japan’s banks to near collapse, in August we reported that the Bank of Japan came up with an “ingenious” new plan to flood the system with liquidity: it is paying banks hundreds of millions of dollars in bonuses to boost lending, a move analysts say was aimed at easing the side-effects of its negative interest rate policy.

    And while record bank lending in the summer months suggested the BOJ’s plan is working – a very rare success of late in its losing battle to revive the economy – it was also a sign that policymakers’ focus is now more on supporting banks, rather than keeping rates low, according to Reuters.

    To be sure, the literal wall of money printed by the BOJ in recent years has kept a lid on bankruptcies and job losses as the economy tips into a deep recession, although it has also meant that banks can not survive without continued life support from the central bank. And the prolonged battle with COVID-19 has only added strains on regional banks.

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    Needless to say, the local bankers were delighted with this latest indirect transfer from taxpayers to the top 1%: “This is one of the most effective policy moves the BOJ has made in recent years,” said Takehiro Noguchi, senior economist at Mizuho Research who personally stands to benefit from this “effective policy move.” We found his second comment far more illuminating:

    “The BOJ will likely continue to take steps to alleviate the side-effect of its monetary easing… The BOJ thinks negative interest rates is something it should not have done.”

    Fast forward 3 months when the validity of that statement was confirmed overnight when the Bank of Japan unveiled on Tuesday yet another scheme allowing banks to circumvent te catastrophic NIRP policy, one aimed at incentivizing regional bank to consolidate and help revitalize regional economies, the latest move which hints at growing concern over the health of the country’s banking system.

    In the latest reversal of the country’s NIRP policy, Kuroda established over 7 years ago, the central bank said it will introduce a special deposit facility under which it will pay – not collect – 0.1% interest on current account balances held by regional lenders that meet certain criteria. Of course, in Japan interest rates are mostly flat or negative, and is one of the main reasons why Japan’s banking system, like that of the EU, has been on the verge of collapse for nearly a decade.

    “The business environment surrounding regional financial institutions is becoming more severe due to the impact from the coronavirus pandemic, structural factors like dwindling population and continued low interest rates,” the BOJ admitted.

    As a result, “the BOJ decided to create a system that assists financial institutions in making efforts to underpin their regional economies.”

    And that system effectively reverses the central bank’s negative rate policy.

    Under the three-year scheme lasting until March 2023, regional lenders that opt for mergers or business integration will be remunerated, the BOJ said in a statement. Regional banks that also improve their financial health – which ironically was sapped by the BOJ’s previous idiotic policies – such as by cutting operating costs, i.e., firing workers, will also be applicable for the scheme, the central bank said.

    The move reflects a growing concern, shared even by some BOJ policymakers, over the rising cost and diminishing returns of its ultra-loose monetary policy.

    Under a policy dubbed yield curve control (YCC), the BOJ guides short-term rates at -0.1% and long-term yields at zero as part of efforts to revitalize the economy. The policy, however, has added to strains for regional banks as it makes net interest income virtually impossible.

    Japan’s new Prime Minister Yoshihide Suga has loosely pulled an Amadeus, and said there were “too many regional banks” in Japan, signalling his desire for some weak lenders to consider mergers or consolidation. Even before the BOJ’s latest move, some regional banks had already started the groundwork for consolidation.

    Bottom line: the central banks is now aggressively encouraging banks to become too big to fail, and to reward them it will allow them to skirt the provisions of Japan’s negative rate policy which, we remind readers, was launched precisely to help banks and boost Japan’s economy. Instead both find themselves on the edge of collapse.

  • "I Did Not Recant": USPS Whistleblower Stands By Backdated Ballot Claim
    “I Did Not Recant”: USPS Whistleblower Stands By Backdated Ballot Claim

    Tyler Durden

    Tue, 11/10/2020 – 20:25

    On Tuesday evening, the Washington Post wrote that USPS whistleblower Richard Hopkins ‘admitted to fabricating’ allegations of voter fraud, when he claimed in a Project Veritas video that he overheard a postmaster in Erie, Pennsylvania instructing postal workers to collect and backdate ballots received after election day.

    Citing “people who spoke on the condition of anonymity,” the Post now says that Hopkins – a Marine combat veteran – “signed an affidavit recanting his claims.“

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    Hopkins, however, says he did not recant.

    In a Tuesday night interview with Project Veritas founder James O’Keefe, Hopkins says he was intimidated and coerced by federal investigators with the USPS Inspector General’s office.

    “They were grilling the hell out of me,” says Hopkins, adding “I feel like I just got played.”

    Hours after the Post‘s claim, O’Keefe tweeted a recording of Hopkins’ interview with IG employee Russel Strasser.

    “I am trying to twist you a little bit, believe it or not, because in that – your mind will kick in,” said Strasser.

    “Okay,” says Hopkins.

    “We like to control our mind,” Strasser continues. “And when we do that, we can convince ourselves of a memory. But when you’re under a little bit of stress, which is what I’m doing to you purposely, your mind can be a little bit clearer and we’re going to do a different exerciser too, to make your mind a little bit clearer. So, but this is all on purpose.”

    “Roger,” replies Hopkins.

    “I am not scaring you. But I am scaring you,” he continued.

    At the end of the interview with O’Keefe, Hopkins says that he stands by his original claim. Meanwhile, O’Keefe says there is more coming tomorrow on this.

    Watch:

    https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.jsAttorney and conservative commentator Mike Cernovich suggested the Strasser was employing ‘an interrogation technique where the federal agent tries to use stress tactics to implant a false memory into the interview subject.’

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    Earlier in the evening, Veritas posted a video of Hopkins explicitly saying “I do not recant.”

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    Hopkins, meanwhile, has been placed on administrative leave without pay.

    O’Keefe said in a Tuesday night email “We are going to release such concrete evidence exposing your lies that you will all have eggs on your faces,” adding “Stay tuned, these people have no clue what’s coming their way.”

  • "Shredding The Fabric Of Our Democracy": Biden Aide Signals Push For Greater Internet Censorship
    “Shredding The Fabric Of Our Democracy”: Biden Aide Signals Push For Greater Internet Censorship

    Tyler Durden

    Tue, 11/10/2020 – 20:05

    Authored by Jonathan Turley,

    We have been discussing the calls for top Democrats for increased private censorship on social media and the Internet.  President-elect Joe Biden has himself called for such censorship, including blocking President Donald Trump’s criticism of mail-in voting. Now, shortly after the election, one of Biden’s top aides is ramping up calls for a crackdown on Facebook for allowing Facebook users to read views that he considers misleading — users who signed up to hear from these individuals. 

    Bill Russo, a deputy communications director on Biden’s campaign press team, tweeted late Monday that Facebook “is shredding the fabric of our democracy” by allowing such views to be shared freely.

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    Russo tweeted that “If you thought disinformation on Facebook was a problem during our election, just wait until you see how it is shredding the fabric of our democracy in the days after.” Russo objected to the fact that, unlike Twitter, Facebook did not move against statements that he and the campaign viewed as “misleading.” He concluded. “We pleaded with Facebook for over a year to be serious about these problems. They have not. Our democracy is on the line. We need answers.”

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    For those of us in the free speech community, these threats are chilling. We saw incredible abuses before the election in Twitter barring access to a true story in the New York Post about Hunter Biden and his alleged global influence peddling scheme. Notably, no one in the Biden camp (including Biden himself) thought that it was a threat to our democracy to have Twitter block the story (while later admitting that it was a mistake).

    I have previously objected to such regulation of speech. What is most disturbing is how liberals have embraced censorship and even declared that “China was right” on Internet controls. Many Democrats have fallen back on the false narrative that the First Amendment does not regulate private companies so this is not an attack on free speech. Free speech is a human right that is not solely based or exclusively defined by the First Amendment.  Censorship by Internet companies is a “Little Brother” threat long discussed by free speech advocates.  Some may willingly embrace corporate speech controls but it is still a denial of free speech.

    This is why I recently described myself as an Internet Originalist:

    The alternative is “internet originalism” — no censorship. If social media companies returned to their original roles, there would be no slippery slope of political bias or opportunism; they would assume the same status as telephone companies. We do not need companies to protect us from harmful or “misleading” thoughts. The solution to bad speech is more speech, not approved speech.

    If Pelosi demanded that Verizon or Sprint interrupt calls to stop people saying false or misleading things, the public would be outraged. Twitter serves the same communicative function between consenting parties; it simply allows thousands of people to participate in such digital exchanges. Those people do not sign up to exchange thoughts only to have Dorsey or some other internet overlord monitor their conversations and “protect” them from errant or harmful thoughts.

    Russo’s comments mirror the comments of other Democrats who are seeking greater censorship. Indeed, in the recent Senate hearing on Twitter’s suppression of the Biden story, Democratic senators ignored the admissions of Big Tech CEOs that they were wrong to bar the story and, instead, insisted that the CEOs pledge to substantially increase such censorship. Senator Jacky Rosen warned the CEOS that “you are not doing enough” to prevent “disinformation, conspiracy theories and hate speech on your platforms.”

    Again, as someone raised in a deeply liberal and Democratic family in Chicago, I do not know when the Democratic party became the party for censorship. However, limiting free speech is now a rallying cry for Democratic members and activists alike. At risk is the single greatest invention for free speech since the printing press.  Russo’s comments reaffirms that the Biden Administration will continue this assault against Internet free speech.  What is most unnerving is that Russo is denouncing such free speech as “shredding the fabric of our democracy.” There was a time when free speech was the very right that we fought to protect in our democratic system.  It was one of the defining principles of our Constitution system. It is now being treated as a threat to that system.

  • Illinois, Utah & Montana Break COVID-19 Records As US Death Toll Nears 240k: Live Updates
    Illinois, Utah & Montana Break COVID-19 Records As US Death Toll Nears 240k: Live Updates

    Tyler Durden

    Tue, 11/10/2020 – 19:52

    Summary:

    • Illinois, Utah and Montana break COVID records
    • Illinois fifth state to top 500k cases
    • Maryland enters “red zone” COVID restrictions
    • Spain daily cases jump 30%
    • Dr. Fauci says Pfizer vaccine EUA one week away
    • Italy reports 35k+ new cases
    • US cases top 100k for 6th day
    • Hospitalizations match April records
    • Pfizer vaccine to be offered at below-market rates
    • Global cases near 51 million
    • New study shows COVID patients could be at higher risk of mental-health issues
    • Denmark warns of mink farms’ threat to human health

    * * *

    Update (1930ET): Utah, Illinois and Montana all broke records on Tuesday as the US topped 10.2 million cases and deaths exceeded 239,000. Illinois reported its highest number of daily cases with 12,623 infections, along with 79 more deaths. It has also become the fifth state to surpass 500,000 cases, per JHU, with 511,183 confirmed. Of course, as we noted earlier, with case numbers soaring, some are arguing that the state might already be well on its way toward herd immunity.

    Montana announced 1,101 new Covid-19 cases Tuesday, a new record high for the state, meanwhile, Utah, which imposed new emergency measures over the weekend, recorded a new high for its 7-day average.

    * * *

    Update (1700ET): Maryland Gov Larry Hogan has just confirmed that the state has returned to ‘red zone’ status – the strictest COVID-19 settings available – as the state’s ‘case rate’  (the number of infections per 100k) has climbed.

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    The state has confirmed just over 150k total cases, but its positivity rate, which is supposed to show whether higher case numbers are due to virus spread instead of just more testing, is now 5.24%.

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    Watch Hogan’s live update below:

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    * * *

    Update (1255ET): Following in the footsteps of Italy, Spain just recorded 7,552 virus cases over the last day, up significantly from 4,441 on Monday, enough to send a surge of anxiety through the Spanish government, which has so far been relatively happy with the results from the country’s most recent lockdown.

    * * *

    Update (1215ET): After the US reported a new record number of daily cases yesterday, squeaking above Saturday’s record as new cases remain stubbornly above 100k a day earlier, Italy on Tuesday reported another 35k+ new COVID-19 cases, just days after the government tightened COVID-19 restrictions by elevating six regions to code “orange”, among other restrictions.

    Meanwhile, Dr. Fauci, speaking with the press, said that he expects the emergency use approval from the FDA for Pfizer’s vaccine to arrive “in a week or so”. At this point in the process, the good doctor anticipates few problems. He also confirmed that he attended a recent White House coronavirus task force meeting.

    * * *

    The trajectory, and potential, of COVID-19 vaccine projects remained the biggest COVID-19 story of the day on Tuesday following Monday morning’s blockbuster Pfizer announcement (which was scooped by WSJ) about its vaccine candidate being 90% effective, as hopes for improved COVID-19 treatments were stoked again last night by news of the FDA’s emergency-use approval for Eli Lilly’s antibody therapy, Bamlanivimab.

    The rush of optimistic news post-election, combined with the jubilant media reaction, prompted President Trump to speculate about the timing of the rollout.

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    But circling back to the numbers, the situation in the US is growing even more dire. Bloomberg reported Tuesday morning that the US appears on track to hit a record number of new COVID-19 hospitalizations, thanks largely to Texas – particularly the border city of El Paso – and the Midwest.

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    El Paso alone has more people hospitalized with COVID-19 than 29 US states, according to local officials. After the latest increase, the present nationwide number for hospitalizations was 56,768, a number that is presently rising at about 1,321 cases a day over the past week.

    That pace puts the US on track to top its April 15 record of 59,940.

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    Source: mSightly

    Positivity rates, that is, the percentage of those tested daily who come back positive, has been climbing across the country, but the numbers across the Midwest have really soared over the past couple of weeks.

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    Source: mSightly

    Bloomberg has produced a helpful chart showing the breakdown of COVID-19 hospitalizations that clearly illustrates the trends in Texas, the Midwest and elsewhere.

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    Source: Bloomberg

    Measuring by hospitalizations per million residents, South Dakota and Illinois take the lead.

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    To be sure, Bloomberg pointed out that the situation still isn’t as dire as the springtime outbreak in New York and New Jersey. Back in April, hospitalization data wasn’t yet available for every state so it can be difficult to compare. But health-care officials stressed that hospitalizations are indeed worse than at any time since April.

    Out of Brazil, we got some less-than-welcome news for China’s leading vaccine, throwing the Chinese effort into stark relief with the western projects.

    Speaking on CNBC Tuesday morning, Alex Azar, the head of the Department of Health and Human Services, said that the White House task force is “absolutely” in discussions to potentially deploy field hospitals and other resources to the Midwest and Texas, in areas where the hospital system truly is at risk of being strained.

    Meanwhile, in the US, the number of new cases has topped 100k per day for the last six days, while in Europe, deaths are following case numbers higher, a trend that is currently vexing national authorities.

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    Source: JPM

    Here’s some more news from Tuesday morning and overnight:

    US cases +105,142 (prev. +93,811) and deaths +490 (prev. +1,072), while hospitalizations rose to nearly 59k patients (Source: newswires).

    BioNTech Chief Strategy Officer says the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine will likely be priced well below typical market rates, with different prices for different locations. Italy will get 13.6% of the first 200mln doses of the  vaccine made available to Europe, possible by January. Germany looks to sign a final agreement shortly for up to 100mn doses. (Newswires).

    UK Health Minister Hancock says it will take some time for a vaccine to be rolled out; central expectation for the bulk of the deployment of a vaccine is H1-2021; does not know when we will hear on the Oxford University/AstraZeneca.

    New study shows that COVID-19 patients more likely to suffer long-term psychiatric issues (Source: Bloomberg).

    Mink farms threaten human health and will likely continue to do so in the pandemic, according to Denmark’s top epidemiologist, who said the industry represents “far too high” a risk to human health and safety (Source: Bloomberg).

  • Communist Party Expands Crackdown On China's Tech Billionaires After Spoiling Ant Financial IPO
    Communist Party Expands Crackdown On China’s Tech Billionaires After Spoiling Ant Financial IPO

    Tyler Durden

    Tue, 11/10/2020 – 19:45

    Jack Ma might be China’s richest man (for now, at least), but in the span of a week, Beijing’s decision to postpone the planned IPO/spinoff of Alibaba’s Ant Financial unit offering in Shanghai, preceded, according to reports, by onerous new regulatory measures (which, analysts say, could cut the company’s value in half) has brought Ma to heel.

    What could Ma, whose membership in the Communist Party is a matter of public record, have possibly done to provoke such a painful rebuke? He had the audacity to criticize China’s financial regulations during an appearance at a high-profile industry conference in October. Ma’s comments didn’t make waves at the time, but nothing escapes the CCP.

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    Following a year where China has delivered perhaps its biggest repudiation yet to international hopes for economic and political liberalization (the Hong Kong natsec law and brutal COVID lockdowns are probably the two most vivid examples), it appears President Xi and the Politburo are launching a full-on campaign to rein in the power of China’s tech/fintech billionaires (a group that also includes Tencent founder Pony Ma).

    Why? Because, as we first explained the other day, Beijing has probably long been uncomfortable with the growing global power, influence and visibility of China’s private-economy billionaires. Ma’s insouciance, likely seen as an act of profound disrespect, however obtuse, was simply the straw that broke the camel’s back.  So, we were hardly surprised Tuesday morning when Bloomberg reported that the crackdown on China’s fintech giants appears to be expanding, rattling China’s domestic equity market, as the new “regulations” Beijing promised earlier this month have finally been unveiled.

    One Beijing-based lawyer told the foreign press that this is nothing short of a “watershed moment” for China’s tech industry, the world’s biggest, after the US.

    Xi Jinping’s Communist Party is stepping up efforts to rein in some of China’s most powerful companies, jolting investors and dealing a blow to the country’s richest entrepreneurs.

    Beijing on Tuesday unveiled regulations to root out monopolistic practices in the internet industry, seeking to curtail the growing influence of corporations like Alibaba Group Holding Ltd. and Tencent Holdings Ltd. The rules, which sent both stocks tumbling and sparked a wider selloff in Chinese equities, landed about a week after new restrictions on the finance sector that triggered the shock suspension of Ant Group Co.’s $35 billion initial public offering.

    While Xi’s government has been steadily tightening its grip on the world’s second-largest economy, it has until recently taken a relatively hands off approach toward businesses that dominate China’s burgeoning internet, e-commerce and digital finance industries. Authorities are concerned the companies have become too powerful, according to Ma Chen, a Beijing-based partner at Han Kun Law Offices.

    “This is a watershed moment,” said Ma, who specializes in antitrust.

    Beijing has, not entirely unreasonably, couched its new regulations as intended to break up a private-market monopoly, a narrative that will imagine would be much easier for the public to accept.

    China’s antitrust watchdog is seeking feedback on a raft of regulations that establish a framework for curbing anti-competitive behavior such as colluding on sharing sensitive consumer data, alliances that squeeze out smaller rivals and subsidizing services at below cost to eliminate competitors. They may also require companies that operate a so-called Variable Interest Entity – a vehicle through which virtually every major Chinese internet company attracts foreign investment and lists overseas – to apply for specific operating approval.

    The latest proposal follows heightened scrutiny of technology companies worldwide, as regulators investigate the extent to which internet giants from Facebook Inc. to Alphabet Inc.’s Google can leverage their dominance. Consumers in China – home to some of the world’s largest corporations from e-commerce giant Alibaba to WeChat-operator Tencent – have in recent years protested against the gradual erosion of their privacy via technology from facial recognition to big data analysis.

    Notably, as BBG reminds us, the crackdown isn’t completely out of the blue: It began last year with an investigation into Tencent’s music arm and its exclusive agreements with publishers.

    “There seems to be a broader China government sentiment that internet platforms are becoming too powerful,” said Hoi Tak Leung, a Hong Kong-based lawyer specializing in Chinese internet companies at Ashurst LLP. “This would be consistent with worldwide developments as well.”

    These latest new rules – according to the government, anyway – build upon a new Anti-Monopoly Law passed in January, which included broad language allowing the state wide latitude to target Internet companies, an issue that’s also playing out in the US.

    Ironically mirroring the Trump Administration’s drive to hold the biggest American tech firms accountable for allegedly monopolistic practices, Beijing’s crackdown, which is expected to have the biggest impact on Tencent (which owns the ubiquitous payments app WeChat) and Alibaba, could also create new opportunities by giving smaller Chinese tech firms more space to compete.

    Alibaba and Tencent now dominate e-commerce and gaming, but are also key backers of leaders in adjacent businesses such as Wang Xing’s Meituan and car-hailing leader Didi. They’ve together invested billions of dollars in hundreds of up-and-coming mobile and internet companies, gaining kingmaker status in the world’s largest smartphone and internet arena by users. Companies like ByteDance and Tencent-rival NetEase Corp., controlled by William Ding, that have risen to prominence without backing from either of the pair are viewed as rare exceptions. In other areas, Robin Li’s Baidu Inc. dominates online search.

    “The Party is faced with the conflicting desires to empower domestic tech companies to be internationally competitive, while keeping their market activities firmly under control at home,” said Kendra Schaefer, head of digital research at the Trivium China consultancy in Beijing. “The horizontal spread of Chinese big tech makes anti-monopoly regulation that much more urgent for Chinese regulators.”

    Han Kun Law’s Ma said the specific regulation pertaining to VIEs requiring approval should be of concern to much of the industry as well. The model has never been formally endorsed by Beijing but has been used by tech titans such as Alibaba to list their shares overseas. Under the structure, Chinese corporations transfer profits to an offshore entity with shares that foreign investors can then own. Pioneered by Sina Corp. and its investment bankers during a 2000 initial public offering, the VIE framework rests on shaky legal ground and foreign investors have been nervous about their bets unwinding overnight.

    “It will not only have a huge impact on Alibaba but also all the companies that use a platform business model and a VIE structure,” Ma said.

    Anybody who doesn’t immediately recognize the irony in the notion that the CCP is merely trying to make its markets fair and competitive for the “little guy” probably doesn’t truly understand the nature of the relationship between the Party, and the Chinese economy. Fundamentally, before everything else, it’s about control, not fairness.

  • Election 2020: Choking On The Political Red And Blue Pills
    Election 2020: Choking On The Political Red And Blue Pills

    Tyler Durden

    Tue, 11/10/2020 – 19:25

    Authored by Wendy McElroy via The Mises Institute,

    Presidential election 2020 is the same as every other, except in the ways it isn’t. Allow me to expand on this…

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    What is the same?

    The purpose of all elections is to allow a band of people called the state to legitimize their claim of control over everyone and everything within a given jurisdiction. In his book The Rise and Fall of Society, the Old Right libertarian Frank Chodorov defines the state as “a number of people who, having somehow got hold of it,” use “the machinery of coercion to the end that they might pursue their version of happiness without respect to the discipline of the market place” (italics added).

    The two somehows of getting and holding political power are to use institutionalized violence or to convince people to respect state authority. Statists usually pursue some combination of both. Violence is rarely preferred, however, because it can backlash into a resistance that threatens state power. It is far better for the state if people oppress themselves through willing obedience. It is even better if they express enthusiasm for their own oppression. Thus politicians and the media applaud the rah-rah attitude of cheering crowds who characterize elections. Thus voting is deified as the voice of “the people,” a fundamental right, and the best way to change society.

    The situation is the opposite of what the state claims. The anarchist author Albert Jay Nock divided power into two categories: social and state. Social power is the freedom individuals exercise over their lives; when people gather for mutual benefit and when a society forms, this is also social power. State power is the control government exercises over individuals and society; it preys upon them—through taxation, for example—to enrich itself. An inverse and antagonistic relationship exists between the two types of power, with the state expanding only at the expense of society and vice versa. Freedom does not and cannot come from elections that strengthen the state’s perceived legitimacy; freedom depends on weakening this authority, preferably down to zero.

    The popular celebration of the “right” to vote puzzled Nock and Chodorov. In his book Out of Step, Chodorov writes,

    Why should a self-respecting citizen endorse an institution grounded in thievery? For that is what one does when one votes….Perhaps the silliest argument, and yet the one invariably advanced…is that “we must choose the lesser of two evils”. Under what compulsion are we to make such a choice? Why not pass up both of them?

    The answer: people do so because they believe elections and the state are necessary evils. Despite the presence of far more effective strategies—education and agorism are only two—people see no other effective alternatives for social change or stability.

    So far in the analysis, election 2020 is the same as every other election; only circumstances like voter turnout are unusual.

    What is different?

    The state’s mask of legitimacy is slipping. Election 2020 is rife with Republican cries of “Fraud!” As early as April, Trump was ringing alarm bells about the mail-in ballots demanded by Democrats, calling them “horrible” and “corrupt,” with “tremendous potential for voter fraud.” Democrats counterattacked by accusing Republicans of destroying democracy by delegitimizing the election.

    The Democrats are correct about Republicans damaging democracy but wrong about their glorification of mob rule and blind to their own role in the political carnage. Like the state, democracy is accepted only in the minds of people who believe in the system. A flood of news stories about electoral abuse have shaken this faith, whether or not the stories are true; discarded ballots, dishonest counts, lack of oversight, slack verification, ballot harvesting, and voter suppression have caused lawsuits and protests to erupt across America.

    But is election 2020 any more rigged than some past ones? A 2016 article in the Daily Signal, “Rigged Election? Past Presidential Contests Sowed Doubt and Nearly Led to Violence,” lists five presidential races that are viewed as having been won through fraud. And the problem is not confined to the Oval Office. A recent article, “Don’t Forget LBJ’s Election Theft,” by Jacob Hornberger of the Future of Freedom Foundation, recounted the incredible corruption of Lyndon B. Johnson’s senatorial race. Nevertheless, the iniquities of this election seem to be unusually widespread and transparent.

    Several factors undoubtedly contribute to the more conspicuous abuse.

    • Many on the left and in the media passionately hate Trump, whom they view as a woman-bashing, homophobic racist. Racism is the worst sin in our culture, which leaves Trump haters free to shed all pretense of fairness toward him. For his part, Trump stokes the fire through caustic tweets and comments.

    • Some campaign veterans on the left may have sensed the Democrats’ weakness: Biden is a terrible candidate who is mentally deteriorating, hides in his basement, and cannot draw a crowd. To these Democrats, cheating may seem necessary.

    • Others on the left probably believed the polls, which made them cocky and careless. They shouldn’t have been. Journalist Glenn Greenwald states concisely in two tweets, “You have an incumbent President with a massive recession, an unemployment, rent and foreclosure crisis, and an out-of-control pandemic, and this is what the Democrats are able to do with it… Assuming that Biden ekes out a victory, that the Democrats managed to *lose* seats in the House with everything going on might be the most shocking and pathetic part of what happened.”

    • Trump vows to dismantle the deep state. Whether he is sincere or capable of doing so is debatable. There is no question, however, that he has exposed some formidable deep state enemies and wants them punished. The accused, like former director of national intelligence James Clapper, want blood, and they do not play by the rules.

    • A Trump administration would pursue the Hunter Biden–Burisma scandal, which is making other prominent figures very nervous. A Biden administration would make it go away.

    • The political storm reflects what is happening on the streets and in the culture. Constant protests and riots seem to fill the streets with tension and crime. In the last two decades, a take-no-prisoners culture of moral outrage has spilled from campuses into the mainstream, using tactics of intimidation, rage, and violent confrontation.

    • Identity politics is a surging political approach. It defines human beings by secondary characteristics like race and pits different groups into nonnegotiable conflict that blocks the possibility of civil discussion or action.

    Election 2020 did not provide a clear winner. The contest de facto continues through lawsuits and court decisions. Here this election could be different from most others, although, again, not unprecedented. If a tie or disputed ballots prevent both candidates from reaching 270 electoral votes, then the House will decide who will be president.

    Chad Pergram, the congressional correspondent for Fox News, explains, “Congress must approve certificates of election from all 50 states.” The “crucial date is December 14, dictated by an obscure, 1887 law…The Electoral Count Act dictates that states choose electors no more than 41 days after the election. This is partly why the Supreme Court rushed to complete Bush v. Gore on December 12, 2000. The decision halted the count of ballots in Florida, handing the presidency to George W. Bush.” Legal challenges to state elections may result in the same for Trump.

    If Congress cannot certify the electoral college votes, Pergram describes the next steps. “If Congress determines there’s a stalemate, the 12th Amendment directs the House to elect the President. This is called a ‘contingent election.’” A delegate from each state casts one ballot. The process would probably advantage Trump, as Republicans have fewer representatives but they cover more states.

    “At this point,” Pergram writes, “we expect House Speaker Nancy Pelosi…presuming she is re-elected,…and Vice President Pence, in his capacity as President of the Senate, to co-preside over the Joint Session. Pence’s term doesn’t expire until January 20. And, the 12th Amendment…mandates that ‘the President of the Senate shall, in the presence of the Senate and House of Representatives, open all the certificates and the votes shall be counted’.” Unfortunately, this wording raises another difficulty over which constitutional scholars have debated for years; it does not specify how the votes are to be counted. Pergram points to yet another possible obstacle. “The 12th Amendment also says ‘the person having the greatest number of votes for President shall be President’. But Congress must agree to all of this. And remember, Pence is the one running the show at this stage.”

    In short, an incredible mess might well be followed by another incredible mess—one that could set a constitutional precedent. Nonvoters should feel pleased and proud to have played no part in the ugly fiasco of presidential election 2020. “A curse on both your houses” is the sound libertarian position.

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